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AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of 
SIR WALTER BESANT 



WITH A PREFATORY NOTE 
BY S. SQUIRE SPRIGGE 




NEW YORK- DODD, MEAD AND 
COMPANY • MDCCCCII 



COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY 
DODD, MEAD AND CO. 






First Edition Published April, 1902 



THE LIIRARV 4f' 

••NORCSS, 
Tw« Oonu RMOvia 

APR. 25 1902 

OtPl *Hl IT in'"' 

OLAM a XXa. ««» 



UNIVERSITY PRESS ■ JOHN WILSON 
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 



Contents 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

Child and Boy i 



CHAPTER II 
Child and Boy (continued) 33 

CHAPTER III 
School-Boy • 55 

CHAPTER IV 
King's College, London 67 

CHAPTER V 
Christ's College, Cambridge 79 

CHAPTER VI 
A Tramp Abroad 102 

CHAPTER VII 
L'Ile de France in 

CHAPTER VIII 

England again : The Palestine Exploration 

Fund 145 

V 



CONTENTS 
CHAPTER IX 

PAGE 

First Steps in the Literary Career — and 

Later i68 

CHAPTER X 

The Start in Fiction : Critics and Criti- 
casters 1 80 

CHAPTER XI 

The Novelist with a Free Hand .... 198 

CHAPTER XII 
The Society of Authors and Other Societies 215 

CHAPTER XIII 
Philanthropic Work 243 

CHAPTER XIV 
The Survey of London 261 

CHAPTER XV 
The Atlantic Union 265 

CHAPTER XVI 

Conclusion: The Conduct of Life and the 

Influence of Religion 273 

INDEX 287 



VI 



A Prefatory Note 

. . . " It is hard to speak, of him within measure when we consider 
his devotion to the cause of authors, and the constant good service ren- 
dered by him to their material interests. In this he was a valorous, 
alert, persistent advocate, and it will not be denied by his opponents 
that he was always urbane, his object being simply to establish a sys- 
tem of fair dealing between the sagacious publishers of books and the 
inexperienced, often heedless, producers. How unselfishly, with how 
pure a generosity he gave his valuable time to the previously neglected 
office of adviser to the more youthful of his profession, may be esti- 
mated by a review of his memorable labours in other fields. They 
were vast and toilsome, yet he never missed an occasion for acting as 
the young author's voluntary friend in the least sentimental and most 
sensible manner. He had no thought of trouble or personal loss 
where the welfare of his fellow-workers was concerned. . . .■" — Mr. 
George Meredith, writing of Sir Walter Besant in the Author of 
July, 1901. 

/4 N autobiography should be its own justifica- 
l—^L tion and its own interpretation. There 
"^ should be no room for a preface and no 
need for any intermediary between the writer and 
the public to whom he has designed to appeal. If 
it is necessary to add much to an autobiography, 
the author is made to appear to have suppressed 
things that he should have said ; if any passages are 
deleted, the portrait of himself which he proposed 
to draw is rendered incomplete. I have kept these 
things before me, and in preparing Sir Walter 
Besant's autobiography for the press have confined 

vii 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

the modifications to the correction of obvious slips, 
and to the addition of certain passages — mainly quo- 
tations from his own works ^ — to which references 
were made in the manuscript. Only a few words are 
called for, but the circumstances in which Sir Walter 
Besant's autobiography is being published require a 
little explanation. These circumstances account for 
the slight corrections that have been made, as well 
as for the obvious incompleteness of his record in 
certain directions. It has been felt by his widow, 
by the executors of his will, and by his literary 
executor, that this, in justice to his memory, should 
be made clear to the reader. 

Sir Walter Besant's autobiography was written 
for publication, and no one had any right to with- 
hold the book from the public. Yet although Sir 
Walter Besant expressly meant his account of his 
life to be published, death overtook him before he 
had prepared it for press. Those who were familiar 
with the man and his literary methods know well 
what that means ; they know that the autobiography 
is not presented in the form it would have appeared 
in had it undergone the minute revision to which 
all his written matter was subjected. His limpid 
style did not betray the fact that he was a rigorous 
critic of himself. In the eleventh chapter of the 
autobiography he explains to all whom it may in- 
terest his manner of writing a book. He compares 

^ Messrs. Cliatto & Windiis, the publishers of Sir Walter Besant's 
novels, have kindly given permission for the inclusion of these passages 
in the autobiography. 

viii 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

it to the task of an engineer constructing a tunnel, 
drilling and mining, completing the work behind 
while thrusting the pick into the work ahead. This 
autobiography is to some extent an unfinished 
tunnel. Being an autobiography, the course of 
the work was clearly indicated to the author, who 
was able to dispense with a rough draft. But what 
he should include and what he should omit, what 
he should treat fully and what he should regard 
as episodes, had to be considered, and this was cer- 
tainly not done by Besant in all places with his usual 
thorough care. If he had followed his invariable 
plan of composition, he would have made up his 
mind on many such points only when he came to 
the actual task of revising. This revision was wont 
to be done upon his manuscript roughly, and then 
very fully upon a type-written copy of that manu- 
script. The manuscript of the autobiography had 
not been type-written. The written manuscript 
was fully and freely corrected, and it may be taken 
for granted that the earlier portions of the work 
now appear much as they were intended to appear; 
but the later chapters would certainly have been 
amplified, and possibly modified in some directions. 
Such revision cannot be done now by any one, how- 
ever sure we may feel that it would have been done 
by him. If certain passages appear to readers to 
be unnecessarily sweeping, and especially if those 
who enjoyed a personal acquaintance with Besant 
find expressions of opinion in his posthumous me- 
moir which hardly represent the man they knew, I 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

would press that these points may be remembered: 
that he died leaving the manuscript in what he 
would have considered an unfinished state ; that it 
was his express desire that it should be published ; 
and that any attempt to modify his work either by 
addition or subtraction, however honest in its inten- 
tion to make a more accurate picture, would amount 
to a dangerous tampering with the original. 

The autobiography does Besant scant justice, but, 
in noting the deficiencies, I do so with no com- 
pletely unnecessary eulogy, and no equally unneces- 
sary apology. Nor do I attempt to point out places 
where I believe the author would have made altera- 
tions. The revision might have taken the form of 
some modification of words, or the addition of other 
matter which would have altered the proportions of 
the work, and no one can guess which change, if 
any, would have been made. But it is permissible 
to say a few prefatory words to guard against false 
impressions, the creation of which would certainly 
not have been risked had Besant revised his manu- 
script as a whole. 

Firstly, then, although Sir Walter Besant with 
much directness, and several times, inveighs against 
the evangelical tenets which prevailed in his youth, 
and although he enunciates at the end of his auto- 
biography his religious creed with complete clear- 
ness, there is no real connection between his creed 
and his dislike of evangelical teaching. From a 
religious point of view his dislike was rather to 
ritualism. His hatred — for no other word can be 

X 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

used — of the evangelical teaching of his youth was 
an expression of his delight in life, and had nothing 
to do with his sacred convictions. He saw the 
beauty of holiness, but he loathed the doctrine that 
it was wrong to be happy in this world — the idea 
that heaven was propitiated by the earthly misery 
of those who sought to be good. He perceived 
the stupid, inconsistency and illogicality of those who 
held that the small section who did as they did 
would be saved whatever their failings, while all 
who differed from them about such a minor ethical 
point as, say, the propriety of play-going, must be 
irretrievably damned, whatever their virtues. " If 
a person," says Overton in "The English Church of 
the Nineteenth Century with regard to the evangelical 
school, " was enjoying a well-spread feast at Clapham, 
with all the charms of the conversation of Wilberforce 
or Milner — which to many people would be in- 
finitely more entertaining than most of the so-called 
entertainments provided by * the world ' — he was 
doing right, and was, so far as outward surroundings 
went, on the way to heaven. But if he was reading 
one of Miss Austen's novels, or at a dance, or a 
concert, or at a card-table (not necessarily gambling), 
or seeing one of Goldsmith's delightful plays acted, 
he was doing wrong, and, so far as outward sur- 
roundings, was in plain words on the way to hell." 
Besant was born and bred in touch with these views, 
and imbibed a horror of their cruelty. 

And if an intense dislike of seeing people wan- 
tonly made unhappy set him against the tenets of 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

the party in the English Church with which he 
should have had most affinity, so an equally intense 
dislike of the mystical set him against ritualism. 
Sir Walter Besant was a clear-headed man who de- 
lighted in thinking out mental and social problems 
for himself, and detested anything that savoured of 
the incomprehensible. In more than one of his 
novels an important situation is the exposure of the 
vain pretension of one of the characters to extraor- 
dinary powers — powers of supernatural achieve- 
ment, powers of discrimination or criticism of 
higher and more delicate character than those 
granted to ordinary mortals. He was ready to 
allow that we now see only through a glass darkly ; 
but he was not ready to allow that any form of 
ordination would make one man see further than 
another, nor to believe that ceremonial might help 
insight by helping faith. Feeling deeply as he did 
the mystery of immortality, he resented any assump- 
tion on the part of a class of ability to see further 
into the mystery than other persons. Sir Walter 
Besant was, it must always be remembered, a scholar 
— and so successful a scholar that although in his 
modest record of his achievements he makes light 
of what he did as a young man, it is quite clear 
that he was from childhood an intellectual leader. 
His natural place was at the head. To his intel- 
lectual equals, and especially to men of leading in 
different departments of learning, he was always 
willing to defer ; but to a priesthood basing their 
right to interpret the Word of God on other than 



A P RE FA T RT NOTE 

intellectual grounds he could not bring himself to 
listen. To some this attitude will seem intolerant, 
and to some it will seem sensible ; but to all who 
knew Sir Walter Besant it will seem the only pos- 
sible one for him. Perhaps he may appear to speak 
against priestly authority — or priestly interposition, 
as he regarded it — with a little acerbity, but such 
an element was so completely foreign to his sweet 
and genial nature that we may be sure that its 
appearance is accidental, and would have been re- 
moved if the writer had been spared to think over 
his words. 

In another place in his autobiography Sir Walter 
Besant's words are more insistent than they need 
have been to give a fair representation of his feel- 
ings. I refer to his repeated allusions to the short- 
comings of a certain class of literary critic. Here 
again, I am convinced, the appearance of acerbity is 
out of proportion to the real state of his sentiments. 
He was not always fairly reviewed, and in particular 
his antiquarian learning and faithful reproduction, 
at whatever cost of time or trouble, of local colour 
often had scant justice done to them. But he will 
have given a wrong impression of himself — a com- 
pletely wrong and unworthy impression — if he 
leads his readers to believe that his attitude towards 
critics was inspired by wounds to his own literary 
vanity. To begin with, Besant received always 
sufficient hearty support in the best quarters to make 
him feel that it did not hurt him to be belittled here 
and there ; and secondly, he was the least vain of 

xiii 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

men. No. Besant was hurt and annoyed with a 
certain class of critics because, as he conceived their 
duty, they had no proper quahfications to perform 
it. They were not scholars, and had no business 
to attempt to stand between the public and the 
writer; they had no literary or practical experience 
either to enable them to tell the author what was 
good, bad, and indifferent in his books, or to help 
the reader to choose his mental food aright. He 
scented in the sayings of these ill-equipped judges 
the savour of charlatanism that always offended him 
— their pretensions annoyed him as those of the 
ritualist annoyed him. He believed, and probably 
more than occasionally with some justice, that the 
airs of omniscience concealed depths of ignorance ; 
while perhaps he hardly recognised that it is much 
easier now than it was in his own young days to 
get a working knowledge of an author without deep 
reading. In the fifties and sixties, if a man wanted 
to know about — for example — Rabelais or Balzac, 
he would have to read their works. And he would 
have to read them all, if he had no well-informed 
friend to guide him in making a selection ; other- 
wise he could come to no judgment that would be 
worth quoting, or that he would dare to depend 
upon. To-day, thanks to Besant, among other 
men of letters, there are monographs and exact trea- 
tises which deal with all accepted classics, so that it 
is possible for the critic to speak and write as though 
his reading had been vastly wider than is the case, 
and at the same time to be fairly correct. I think 

xiv 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

Besant hardly realised this fact when he put down 
the men, who paraded an intimate knowledge where 
a nodding acquaintance was all that they possessed, 
as necessarily wrong in what they said. 

In his younger days the acquisition of exact 
knowledge was harder, and perhaps, therefore, more 
prized. It must be remembered that Sir Walter 
Besant's particular friends at college were all men 
of learning. Christ's College, Cambridge, during 
his time was a particularly brilliant establishment. 
Besant belonged to the reading set, and was brought 
up in a school of hard work. His knowledge was 
fought for, and recalling the difficulty that he had 
experienced in obtaining it, he found it hard to 
realise that nowadays knowledge is easier to come 
by. Again, he was impatient of facile criticism be- 
cause he had an immense opinion of the dignity of 
letters, and a great pride, as a novelist, in the part 
that novels had played in the education and de- 
velopment of peoples. He could not believe that 
it was either sound policy on the part of an editor, 
or fair play towards a writer, to hand good work by 
responsible men over to a glib critic, to whom only 
a few lines could be allotted in which, upon imperfect 
information, he must express a summary judgment. 
In behalf both of letters and of fiction he protested 
against the custom, without perhaps quite appreciat- 
ing the editorial position in the matter. However, 
I have no intention of trying to explain away what 
he has said ; I write only to make it clear that his 
views are expressed in the autobiography in a dis- 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

proportionate manner. To read him one would 
think that the iniquity of critics was a subject upon 
which he was constantly brooding ; as a matter of 
fact, it was a subject in which he took no deeper 
interest than scores of literary men, while it must 
be again repeated that what interest he took was in 
no sense personal. He was jealous for the position 
and privileges of authors as a whole, and the stress 
that Is laid upon the shortcomings of some of their 
professional appraisers is due to this. It would not 
have been so noticeable if the autobiography had 
been a complete and rounded story. It is not. It 
is an exposition of the novelist's life, showing how- 
good a life it is when conscientious work meets 
with success. Besant elaborated the record of those 
parts of his life which he conceived to have had a 
particular influence upon his choice of a career, and 
upon the position to which he attained in literature. 
For the rest his tale is made up of somewhat dis- 
connected notes, which serve to show the depth as 
well as the multiplicity of his interests, but which 
have not been written by him with strict regard to 
proportion. It is possible that, if he had lived to 
complete and revise his work, many of the gaps 
would have been filled up ; but even so, the later 
chapters would not have contained, I think, the 
minute personal details of the earlier — those which 
describe the evolution of the novelist, the character 
that he meant to portray. 

If it had been felt that any critical estimate of Sir 
Walter Besant's work would form a fitting intro- 

xvi 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

duction to his autobiography, the task would have 
been committed to someone of his own literary posi- 
tion and weight ; and that a critic of this quality 
may soon speak with no uncertain voice upon the 
matter I hope sincerely. But it is clear from his 
own words that he would have preferred that no 
summing up of his imaginative work should be 
given hastily. It was a part of his high conception 
of the novelist's duties to dislike all attempts at 
placing novelists above or below one another in 
some arbitrary hierarchy, and all labelling of them 
as belonging to this or that school of thought. "It 
is sufficient," he would have said for himself, " to 
read my books — I desire to be judged by them;" 
while he would not have considered a novelist to 
have wholly succeeded in his craft if his work re- 
quired much interpretation, or if many reasons had 
to be found for its want of popularity. He was 
aware of the pellucid nature of his productions, he 
was aware how little they required the assistance of 
the critic, and how entirely the explanation of the 
point of view was superfluous. Straightforward 
characters, set in an accurate environment, often 
subtly and very often delicately drawn, but about 
whose significance there never could be a shadow of 
doubt, tell their own stories in his pages, and while 
revealing their characteristics complete the narrative. 
What need of explanation ? Well, only this. Sir 
Walter Besant by practice — painstaking practice, 
as he informs us — learned to use so facile a pen 
that his limpid prose, together with his rigorous 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

habits of emendation, resulted in a page that was 
extremely easy to read, and the pains which it might 
have cost to write were never really appreciated. 
Again, the conscientious care with which all his 
pictures of men and manners were set in a suitable 
frame, escaped the notice of his critics, because his 
historical information was utilised without parade. 
Passages proving a really wonderful familiarity with 
eighteenth-century habits were often regarded as so 
much padding to a pretty tale, because his smooth 
methods made his performance seem obvious. If 
the tale had been less pretty, more attention would 
have been paid to the mise-en-scene ; the treasures 
of accurate knowledge, lovingly and laboriously ac- 
quired, would have been better appreciated if they 
had been more forced upon the attention. But that 
is exactly the sort of thing that Besant would never 
wittingly provide for. He loved his stories, and to 
exalt his own learning by laying disproportionate 
stress upon some minor incident, and by so doing 
to imperil the symmetry or verisimilitude of his 
work, would have been abhorrent to him. I trust 
that some sound judge, a man with learning to appre- 
ciate Besant's scholarly equipment, and with sym- 
pathy for the difficulties which the author created 
for himself by the strict limitations within which he 
was resolved to abide, will in the near future give 
us an authoritative note upon Sir Walter Besant's 
fiction. 

Sir Walter Besant never lived to complete the 
work which would have established him at once and 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

for ever in the public eye as a historian and anti- 
quary — I mean the Survey of London. In the four- 
teenth chapter of the autobiography, wherein he 
describes the scope of the vast scheme that he had 
undertaken, he speaks of the Survey of London as no 
inconsiderable part of his life-work. As a matter 
of fact, the task that he laid upon himself was enor- 
mous. He proposed with his own pen to write the 
history of London from the earliest times to the 
end of the nineteenth century, taking into account 
the chief historical events in their political and his- 
torical bearing. Special sections of the work — 
scientific education in London, the story of the 
London stage, the work and position of the Metro- 
politan hospitals, are three such sections that occur 
to my mind at once — he proposed to delegate to 
selected writers ; but their contributions would have 
been welded by him, according to his design, into 
a symmetrical whole. He did not live to accom- 
plish the task ; but he made such headway with it z' 
that the whole of the history from his own hand is 
finished in manuscript, and one volume is in type. 
He commenced his labours by arranging for peram- 
bulations of the whole city in imitation of Strype's 
" circuit-walk taken for diversion four or five miles 
round about," and as it is six years since these per- 
ambulations were done, it follows that to-day they 
are in a sense out of date. I say in a sense, for in 
another sense a history of London is never out of 
date, just as it can never be up to date. No his- 
tory of London can do more than mark a stage, 

xix 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

from which point other writers will take up the tale. 
The perambulations in Besant's Survey are not true 
of 1 901 ; but if they had been true of 1901 they 
would not have been true of 1902. To many it 
will seem fortunate that his perambulations were 
made a little before the pulling down of ancient 
buildings that has been necessitated by certain of 
the recent and comprehensive improvement schemes. 
They gain thereby in interest for present readers; 
while the only drawback is that the historian of the 
future will have to build upon Besant's structure, 
beginning at 1897, instead of at the more obvious 
date of 1901. The year 1901, which saw the com- 
mencement of the new century and the death of the 
Great Queen whose reign forms such a distinct and 
splendid epoch in our national development, was 
felt by Sir Walter Besant to be the ideal date up to 
which to bring his history, but the glory and pleas- 
ure of doing this have been denied him. He made 
however sufficient progress to show how capable he 
would have been to carry out his colossal design. 
Let me quote a small passage taken quite at random 
from the perambulations to show what kind of a 
book Besant had planned. They are the first sen- 
tences in the perambulation of Fulham, the section 
of the manuscript dealing with Fulham being by the 
kindness of Messrs. A. and C. Black under my 
hand: — 

"If we enter Fulham at the extreme north east corner, 
the point where the Hammersmith Road crosses the dis- 
trict railway between the Addison Road and West Bromp- 

XX 



A P REFA T RT NOTE 

ton stations, we find ourselves in the ward numbered one 
on the Vestry map and known as Baron's Court. When 
Faulkner wrote his history of Fulham (1813) this was still 
a country district, containing only a few scattered houses, 
along the North End Road. Avonmore Road runs south 
from the boundary, and in it there is a sorting office of the 
Post Office. William Street is parallel to it, and has board 
schools on either side. That on the west was built in 
1874, and subsequently added to, that on the east in 1886. 
Further south, William Street becomes Lisgar Terrace. 
The North End Road, which is a little further westward, 
begins at the Hammersmith Road, and for part of its course 
runs due north and south. In it stands a chapel of the 
United Methodist Free Church. It is singularly devoid of 
any pretension to beauty, being a square structure of dingy 
brick. Further south, just before the North End Road 
curves round to meet Edith Road, are two old houses on 
the left hand side. They are known as 'The Grange' and 
were formerly one building. The southern half is of red 
brick, surrounded by a high wall, and has a gateway, with 
tall red brick pillars, surmounted by stone balls. Beyond 
this we catch a glimpse of a picturesque stable with creep- 
ers covering it. Over the wall hangs an acacia tree, and 
on the top right-hand corner of the house, just above a 
railed balcony, is an old sundial. The house is now the 
residence of Sir Edward Burne Jones. Its fellow adjoin- 
ing has been painted a light stone colour, but shares in the 
glamour of old age. It is in the style of William III., and 
in a print published in Richardson^ s Correspondence^ 1804, 
the house is shown divided into two, as at present. The 
red brick half was that occupied by the novelist, who lived 
here until 1755, when he moved to Parsons Green. Faulk- 
ner mentions it as having been ' lately altered and now 
occupied as two houses,' 18 13. A little further south 
Edith Road branches ofF to the west. At the time of the 
i860 edition of Crofton Croker's Walk from London to 

xxi 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

Fulham^ it was to be 'let on building lease.' It is now a 
street of well-built occupied houses. In it Croker says 
'once stood the house of Cipriani,' the designer. But there 
seems to be some doubt as to the exact site of Cipriani's 
house, for in Thome's Environs of London it is stated, 
'In the lane opposite to Edith Road lived Cipriani.' Cipri- 
ani lived in England from 1755 to 1785, and his works 
were largely engraved by Bartolozzi, who also had a house 
at North End, and who is mentioned at some length by 
Faulkner." 

Can we not picture the delight of the antiquarian, 
the historian, the romancer of the future in the pos- 
session of a book containing such information .'' 
And it was Besant's design to treat all London in 
the same way. The perambulation of Fulham goes 
on to give brief descriptions of such various things 
as the Queen's Club grounds, the Earl's Court Ex- 
hibition, Hurlingham, and Norman (or Normand) 
House ; while considerable space is devoted, of 
course, to Fulham Palace and Fulham Parish Church. 
Strype's circuit-walk about Fulham occupies three 
columns of the well-known edition, and gives merely 
an account of the bishop's palace and the church and 
its monuments. Besant's perambulation of Fulham 
is over twenty times as long, and has records of all 
sorts of buildings and institutions, Fulham having 
grown, during the interval between the walks of the 
two chroniclers, from a beautiful little village to a 
busy and thickly-populated quarter of the world's 
capital. The same enormous expansion of material 
had to be dealt with at every point of the compass ; 
but Besant faced the tremendous difficulties with reso- 

xxii 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

lution. Well may he say in his autobiography that 
he considers his Hterary work in regard to London 
no inconsiderable part of his life's labours. For a 
less indefatigable man, what he managed to accom- 
plish of the Survey would have sufficed for a life- 
time of effort ; and all who have regard for Besant's 
memory look forward to hearing that arrangements 
have been made for completing his great design. 

A quality of Sir Walter Besant's autobiography 
must be touched upon — its modesty. It will only 
be touched upon, for to thrust praise upon one who 
shrank so from praise is somewhat of an outrage. 
The modesty in his autobiography is a fault that 
he would never have corrected, and throughout his 
record of his life he studiously underrates himself, 
hardly at any time assuming credit for aught but 
industry. He regards a first-class scholastic career 
as creditable; his success at Mauritius is barely 
alluded to, only peeping out in the chance admission 
that the rectorship of the College was offered to 
him as the result of a dispute with his chief; his 
account of his share in the collaboration with James 
Rice is pointedly advantageous to Rice; his grati- 
tude for the place that he won in literature is untinc- 
tured by a trace of vanity or jealousy ; he forgets 
to mention his knighthood, and is silent upon that 
much coveted honour, election to the Athenaeum 
Club under Rule II. as "a person who has attained 
to a distinguished eminence in literature " ; on his 
own labours of love in behalf of the Society of 
Authors he has practically nothing to say. 

xxiii 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

He gives the story of this Society, but leaves out 
as far as possible his personal share in that story. 
The self-sacrifice and devotion that he displayed in 
the conduct of the affairs of " Our beloved Society," 
as he called the association in one of his addresses, 
would certainly have been made themes for lengthy 
notice in any life of Besant undertaken by another 
writer, and it is right to supplement his autobiog- 
raphy with a few words in this connection. For his 
attitude towards publisher and author was persis- 
tently misrepresented or misunderstood. He was 
generally accused of a sweeping hatred of publishers, 
and a short-sighted if generous desire to encourage 
incompetent writers. The accusations were founded 
on ignorance. His real attitude was this : having 
asserted that ordinary business routine, either carried 
out personally or by an accredited agent, cannot 
possibly be opposed to the production of matter of 
the first artistic excellence, he set to work to make 
clear the principles which should underlie the com- 
mercial relations of the author and the publisher. 
The literary merits of a particular author, the crystal 
probity of a particular publisher, had nothing to do 
with the case. 

When the earliest business done by the Society 
of Authors made it clear that the publishing world 
— like every other trade and profession — contained 
a few black sheep, Besant declared that customs 
which allowed them a chance of making a livelihood 
ought to be discontinued by all publishers. It is 
difficult to believe that any right-minded judgment 



A P REFA TO RT NOTE 

could consider such a view to be dictated either by- 
wholesale and sweeping hatred of all publishers, or 
by a wish to make the path of the incompetent 
writer smoother. Sir Walter Besant was chairman 
of the Society of Authors on three separate occa- 
sions, his last tenure of office lasting from 1887 to 
1892. Until the day of his death the affairs of the 
Society formed an integral part of his life, and while 
he was chairman the amount of time that he cheer- 
fully spent upon its business is well-nigh incredible. 
During four years he went three or four days in the 
week to the office of the Society, prepared to dis- 
cuss every imaginable point of difficulty. Nothing 
was too large for him to go through with, nothing 
was too small for him to attend to that bore upon 
the profession of letters. He became accessible to 
scores of persons who wasted his valuable time 
simply that he might not lose a chance of hearing 
a case where he could do good. And he took no 
credit for the enormous sacrifice of himself and the 
unceasing call upon his thoughts ; on the contrary, 
if an opportunity occurred, he gave other people 
the praise. 

Mr. Anthony Hope, speaking for the Committee 
of the Society of Authors, has thus expressed their 
views : — 

" Faith, zeal, courage, self-devotion — these were the 
great qualities which he brought to his chosen work — the 
work of developing in men of letters a sense of their brother- 
hood, of the dignity of their profession, of the duty of 
maintaining steadfastly its independence and its rights. 

XXV 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

What he warred against was, in his own words, ' the feel- 
ing, ridiculous, senseless, and baseless, that it is beneath the 
dignity of an author to manage his business affairs as a man 
of business should, with the same regard for equity in his 
agreement, the same resolution to know what is meant by 
both sides of an agreement, and the same jealousy as to 
assigning the administration of his property.' Against the 
old bad way — the hand-to-mouth existence, indolence and 
ignorance parading as the superiority of genius, a slipshod 
negligence that ended in recrimination and wranglings, he 
set his own face and armed his comrades, for it was to his 
comrades in the first instance that his message spoke. 
Their fate was in their own hands ; it was in their power 
to make justice, knowledge, and common sense prevail in 
their business arrangements. . . . He said, ' I can at least 
plead that I have always placed the cause before any other 
consideration.' All our members know one sense in which 
this was so abundantly true. He placed it before his ease 
and his leisure ; for its sake he endured violent attack, super- 
cilious comment, ill-informed criticism ; for it he suffered 
himself to be represented by many as false to the very 
thing he loved best of all — the true and highest interests 
of literature." 

To this fine tribute to Besant's unselfish zeal in 
behalf of his craft, no one can desire to add a word; 
no one can take a word away from it without de- 
tracting from its accuracy. 

If I repeat myself it is because the purpose of 
this prefatory note is to make clear the reason of cer- 
tain limitations in the autobiography which follows. 
Sir Walter Besant has only designed to describe a 
working novelist's career; he expressly says that he 

xxvi 



A PREFATORY NOTE 

Is not making confessions, while he is almost silent 
upon his peaceful and happy private life. The 
manuscript which he left behind him was written in 
the last year of his life, when his health had begun 
to fail ; and, even now that the passages which he 
referred to definitely as requiring insertion have 
been added, the work is not as he would have let 
it go forth. He never revised the manuscript as a 
whole, an important fact, because it was his habit 
to make considerable corrections in all his written 
work. Yet it is certain that he intended his auto- 
biography to be published. For my own part, 
though I am sure that he would have improved the 
autobiography in certain directions if he could have 
followed the promptings of second thoughts, I am 
equally sure that the work as it stands must have 
a useful, nay, a noble influence. A scholar who was 
never a pedant, a beautiful dreamer who was a prac- 
tical teacher, a modest and sincere man speaks in its 
pages, and teaches with conviction a brave scheme 
of life. 

S. SQUIRE SPRIGGE. 

United University Club. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



OF 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

Chapter I 

CHILD AND BOY 

ONE'S birth, as to period, place, social posi- 
tion, connections and education, should be 
determined by every man for himself before 
the event in accordance with the career, or the kind 
of work, destined for him by the Gods. I am sup- 
posing that he has the choice offered him, together 
with an outline of the future — not a future of fate 
laid down with Calvinistic rigour, but a future of 
possibility. And as time, past or future, does not 
exist in the other world, I am supposing that a man 
can be born in any age that he pleases. For many 
reasons I myself, though I speedily forgot the cir- 
cumstances attendant on the choice, decided — quite 
rightly, I believe — that the nineteenth century, so 
far as 1 could judge — not being able to foretell the 
twentieth or following centuries — would be the 
most favourable time for a person like myself. 



) 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

" You," said my guardian angel, " are to be en- 
dowed with certain powers of imagination which 
you will do well to cultivate ; you will have a tol- 
erably good memory, which you will also cultivate, 
if you are wise ; in good hands you might become 
a scholar, a divine, a preacher, a journalist, a novel- 
ist, or a historian. There will be limits, of course, 
to your powers. I fear that to you will not be 
granted the supreme gift of the foremost rank. 
But you will do what you can. How and where 
and when will you please to be born ? " 

A difficult choice. If a man is to be a statesman, 
he should be born in such a station as would enable 
him to take a place in the front at any time, with 
the feeling that command and leadership belong to 
him ; if a soldier, then he should be of a family con- 
nected with the Services, and not wholly without 
property. If a man is to become a clergyman, 
good breeding, good manners, and a public school 
education are invaluable. If a lawyer, or a physi- 
cian, or any other profession, easy manners which 
come from good breeding are always a help. If 
on the other hand a man is destined to be a writer 
of the kind which demands imagination, sym- 
pathy, observation, then he should ask to be born 
neither in the lowest ruck nor in the upper levels. 
For in the former case the manners and the stan- 
dards of the people would become part and parcel 
of himself, so that he would be unable to separate 
himself from them, or to describe them, or to un- 
derstand them ; while in the latter case he would 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

have no chance of observing or knowing how those 
people Hve for whom getting their livelihood is the 
first and most important consideration. For such 
a writer the most favourable position to be born in 
is that of the so-called middle class, where one is 
not so far above the mass as not to know or to 
understand something of their thoughts and stan- 
dards, of their manners, their customs and their 
convictions ; and where one is yet so far removed 
as not to be led or guided by them, or to be unable 
to get outside their prejudices. For much the 
same reason one would not choose to be born in 
London, which is too vast ; in London a child of 
the middle class grows up in a suburb, where he 
lives among respectable folk, and gets no knowl- 
edge either of higher society or lower. There have 
been, it is true, many children of London who 
have achieved greatness. Not to speak of Chaucer 
and Milton, Ben Jonson and Pope, there have 
been such writers as Charles Lamb and Hood ; 
while Dickens and Thackeray also were practically 
Londoners, but in the days before suburban dul- 
ness. On the whole, a place outside London would 
seem preferable ; that place not to be a quiet vil- 
lage, but a busy town, with its own distinctive char- 
acter and its own distinctive people. 

These arguments, in my theory of free and ante- 
natal selection, prevailed, and I was allowed a sea- 
port of the first rank as the place of birth ; the 
second quarter of the nineteenth century as the 
time of birth ; and the middle class for the social 

3 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

rank from which to start. In such a rank one 
begins by looking around and below, but not, as a 
rule, above. 

I have no doubt in my own mind that it was 
also by choice that I became one of a large house- 
hold, so that the rough and tumble of boys and 
girls together might knock out something of self- 
ishness and something of conceit ; a family where 
there was not too much money, and where economy 
was practised — yet without privation — in every 
thing ; and where one understood from the outset 
that for success, if success was desired — it is not 
every boy who is ambitious — there would have to 
be hard work. And I am equally certain of the 
benevolence of the guardian angel when I consider 
that, as regards work among books, I was born of 
an industrious turn of mind. It was, again, a most 
wholesome discipline to learn from childhood that 
whatever is wanted must be earned. It has been 
my lot to live among those who have succeeded 
by their own abilities and hard work, and I find, as 
a general rule, that the sons of such men have 
never learned this wholesome discipline, but have 
grown up in the belief that fortune's choicest gifts 
drop into the laps of those who sit and sleep in 
the sunshine and wait. 

I was born, then, on the evening of Sunday, 
August the 14th, in the year 1836, now sixty-three 
years ago, the place being that known as St. 
George's Square, Portsea, a broad, open place of 
irregular shape lying on the east of the Common 

4 



SIR JVALTER BESANT 

Hard, and containing a curious, sprawling barn of 
a church belonging to the time of George II. 
More about this church presently. The number 
of the house where I saw the light was, I beHeve, 
three. I was the fifth child and the third son of 
a family of ten, of whom nine grew up, and at this 
moment, January 1900, seven survive. 

Great changes have taken place in my native 
town since my early recollections. It was, in my 
boyhood, a strangely picturesque place in its own 
way. There was no other town in England at all 
hke Portsmouth. It then consisted of three divi- 
sions : the. old Town of Portsmouth ; the eighteenth- 
century Town of Portsea ; and the Quarter called 
Point. The suburbs of Landport and Southsea 
were already growing — indeed, Dickens was born 
at Landport in the year 1812 — but they were 
small places. The former contained a dozen streets, 
chiefly of a humble character, with a crescent of 
handsome villas standing in their own gardens ; the 
latter contained one line of terraces, with a main 
street and two or three narrow lanes. The terraces 
were occupied by retired Service people and lodg- 
ing-house keepers — Southsea, from the beginning, 
was always a place for Service people. 

There are no ancient buildings at all in Portsea, 
which is an eighteenth-century town, or in the 
suburbs, but there are a few in Portsmouth. The 
Domus Dei, the mediaeval Hospital, has been con- 
verted into the Garrison Chapel ; here Charles II. 
married Catherine of Braganza. The old church of 

5 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

St. Thomas, with its ship for a weathercock, I 
always regarded with veneration, but I beHeve that 
only the chancel and the transepts are ancient. 
There is a square stone tower at the end of the 
High Street, with a gilt bust of Charles I., who 
landed here on his return — without the Infanta — 
from Spain. There were a few wooden houses in 
Portsmouth, and in my boyhood a large number of 
low, somewhat picturesque gabled houses belonging 
to the time when no dwellings were allowed to be 
higher than the town walls. One of them, unless I 
mistake, still survives. 

The High Street, however, possessed the charm 
of a certain antiquity. The town hall, the house 
where the Duke of Buckingham was murdered, the 
quaint little Unitarian chapel, the " George " and 
" Fountain " inns, the red brick houses, and an air 
of quiet and dignity, not disturbed by recent traffic, 
made the street impressive. But the glory and pride 
of the town were its walls. There were two lines 
of fortification, that of Portsmouth and that of Port- 
sea. One the other side of the harbour was a third 
line, the walls of Gosport. These walls were con- 
structed on the well known system with a scarp, 
counterscarp, advanced works, a moat, gates and 
bridges, and bastions commanding the walls in flank 
and planted with cannon. A broad walk ran along 
the top of the walls, with a parapet from which the 
defender would fire over the sloping earthwork 
breast high. Trees were planted along the broad 
walks ; upon every bastion there was a meadow 

6 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

with a grassy down slope; and at intervals there 
were stone watch towers. Between the walls of 
Portsea and those of Portsmouth was a broad sheet 
of water, called the Mill dam, which rose and fell 
with every tide — an artificial lake constructed with 
an eye to the fortifications. It had a causeway run- 
ning across it and an island in the middle of it. The 
island contained a bastion and a small house, in 
which resided a sergeant and his family. This 
island, to live on which seemed to me the height 
of happiness, communicated with the causeway 
by means of an iron bridge. The walls, with the 
meadows before the bastion, the moat, the counter- 
scarp, the advanced works and the Mill dam occu- 
pied a very considerable space. Outside the whole 
a clear area was kept on which no houses were per- 
mitted to be built. The suburbs of Portsmouth, 
therefore, were unconnected with the town ; they lay 
beyond this clear space. The walls were the play- 
ground, the park, the breathing place for the 
children and the boulevard for the people. Old 
and young walked on the walls. Nursemaids took 
the children every fine day to the walls. They 
were quite safe, for if a child rolled down the slop- 
ing face its fall was over grass and into grass, and no 
harm was done. The little boys brought hoops, 
and ran them round the walls. They clambered 
about the bastions, and peered into the mouths 
of the cannon, and sat upon the gun-carriages, and 
crept out fearfully through the embrasures, and, 
looking over into the moat below, played at seeing 

7 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

the enemy beyond ; or they ran down the grassy 
slopes to the meadows, which in spring were spread 
with a golden carpet of buttercups. These excur- 
sions were illegal. There was a special police for 
the walls ; it consisted of three or four men, re- 
ported to be of short temper, who carried canes, 
with which they " warmed " boys caught in the 
meadows or on the slopes. These guardians were 
called " Johnnies," and I always regarded them as 
unfortunate men of a misanthropic turn whose oc- 
cupation, to catch and " warm " boys, was also their 
pleasure. But as regards ourselves, I think that 
measures of conciliation had been adopted, because 
we seem to have run about everywhere, on the 
slopes or over the meadows, or even in the em- 
brasures, unmolested. 

One of the bastions was our especial delight. It 
was the last on the side of the harbour ; it was more 
secluded than the others, being farther from the 
town, and few children found their way to it. 
They called it the Queen's Bastion. I have 
described the place in one of my novels — that 
called By Celias Arbour. It is not doing an in- 
justice to the memory of my collaborateur, the late 
James Rice, who was not a Portsmouth man and 
had never seen the place, to claim that part of the 
story which belongs to the town as my own. Let 
me therefore quote a little from that book : — 

" Our playground was a quiet place, especially at our 
end, where the town children, to whom the ramparts else- 
where were the chief place of recreation, seldom resorted. 

8 



SIR IVALTER BESANT 

There were earthworks planted with trees and grass, and 
the meadows beneath were bright with buttercups and 
daisies. We were privileged children ; we might run up 
and down the slopes or on the ramparts, or through the 
embrasures, or even clamber about the outer scarp down 
to the very edge of the moat, without rebuke from the 
'Johnnies,' the official guardians of the walls, who went 
about all day armed with canes to keep boys from tearing 
down the earthworks. It was this privilege, as well as the 
general convenience of the place for children to play in, 
which took us nearly every day to the Oueen's Bastion. 
There never was a more delightful retreat. In summer 
the trees afforded shade, and in winter the rampart gave 
shelter. You were in a solitude almost unbroken, close to 
a great centre of life and busy work ; you looked out upon 
the world beyond, where there were fields, gardens, and 
trees ; there was our own round corner, with the stately 
elms above us ; the banks of grass, all sorts of grass, as one 
finds where there is no cultivation, trembling grass, fox- 
tail grass, and that soft, bushy grass for which we had no 
name ; there was the gun mounted on its high carriage, 
gazing out upon the harbour, a one-eyed Polyphemus 
longing for human food. 

" We (Leonard, Celia, and Ladislas Pulaski, who tells 
the story) were standing, as I said, in the north-west 
corner of the Queen's Bastion, the spot where the grass 
was longest and greenest, the wild convolvulus most 
abundant, and where the noblest of the great elms which 
stood upon the ramparts — 'to catch the enemy's shells,' 
said Leonard — threw out a gracious arm laden with leafy 
foliage to give a shade. We called the place Celia's 
Arbour. 

" If you looked out over the parapet, you saw before 

9 



AUTOBIOGRAPHT OF 

you the whole of the most magnificent harbour in the 
world ; and if you looked through the embrasure of the 
wall, you had a splendid framed picture — water for fore- 
ground, old ruined castle in middle distance, blue hill 
beyond, and above blue sky. 

"We were all three silent, because it was Leonard's 
last evening with us. He was going away, our companion 
and brother, and we were there to bid him God speed. 

"It was after eight; suddenly the sun, which a moment 
before was a great disc of burnished gold, sank below the 
thin line of land between sky and sea. 

"Then the evening gun from the Duke of York's 
Bastion proclaimed the death of another day with a loud 
report, which made the branches in the trees above us to 
shake and tremble. And from the barracks in the town ; 
from the Harbour Admiral's flagship ; from the Port 
Admiral's flagship ; from the flagship of the Admiral in 
command of the Mediterranean Fleet, then in harbour ; 
from the tower of the old church, there came such a firing 
of muskets, such a beating of drums, playing of fifes, ring- 
ing of bells, and sounding of trumpets, that you would 
have thought the sun was setting once for all, and re- 
ceiving his farewell salute from a world he was leaving for 
ever to roll about in darkness. 

" The evening gun and the tintamarre that followed 
roused us all three, and we involuntarily turned to look 
across the parapet. Beyond that was the moat, and 
beyond the moat was a ravelin, and beyond the ravelin 
the sea-wall ; beyond the wall a smooth and placid lake, 
for it was high tide, four miles long, and a couple of miles 
wide, in which the splendour of the west was reflected so 
that it looked like a furnace of molten metal. At low tide 
it would have been a great flat level of black mud, unlovely 

lO 



SIR JVALTER BESJNT 

even with an evening sky upon it, intersected with creeks 
and streams which, I suppose, were kept full of water by 
the drainage of the mud-banks. 

" At the end of the harbour stood the old ruined castle, 
on the very margin and verge of the water. The walls 
were reflected in the calm bosom of the lagoon ; the water- 
gate opened out upon the wavelets of the lapping tide; 
behind rose the great donjon, square, grey, and massive; 
in the tourney-yard stood the old church, and we needed 
no telling to make us think of the walls behind, four feet 
broad, rugged and worn by the tooth of Time, thickly 
blossoming with gilly-flowers, clutched and held on all sides 
by the tight embrace of the ivy. There had been rain in 
the afternoon, so that the air was clear and transparent, 
and you could see every stone in the grand old keep, every 
dentation of the wall. 

"Behind the castle lay the low curved line of a long 
hill, green and grassy, which made a background to the 
harbour and the old fortress. It stretched for six miles, this 
hill, and might have been monotonous but for the chalk 
quarries which studded its side with frequent intervals of 
white. Farther on, to the west, there lay a village, buried 
in a great clump of trees, so that you could see nothing but 
the tower of a church and the occasional smoke of a chim- 
ney. The village was so far off that it seemed like some 
outlying fort, an advance work of civilisation, an outpost 
such as those which the Roman conquerors have left in the 
desert. When your eye left the village among the trees 
and travelled southwards, you could see very little of land 
on the other side by reason of the ships which intervened 
— ships of every age, of every class, of every colour, of 
every build ; frigates, three-deckers, brigs, schooners, cut- 
ters, launches, gunboats, paddle-wheel steamers, screw 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

steamers, hulks so old as to be almost shapeless — they 
were lying ranged in line, or they w6re moored separately ; 
some in the full flood of the waning sunset, some in 
shadow, one behind the other, making deep blacknesses in 
the golden water. There was not much life at this late 
hour in the harbour. Here and there a boat pulled by two 
or three lads from the town ; here and there a great ship's 
gig, moving heavily through the water, pulled by a crew 
of sailors, rowing with their slow and measured stroke, and 
the little middy sitting in the stern ; or perhaps a wherry 
coming down from Fareham Creek. But mostly the har- 
bour was silent, the bustle at the lower end having ceased 
with the sunset." 

Later on it was a practice to go once a year with 
a small party to Porchester. The visit was timed 

for the holiday of a certain D. A , a civil servant 

of some department in London. He took his holi- 
day in July or August, and used to join our little 
excursion, which he made merry by a thousand 
jokes and quips and quirks. He was always in 
good spirits and always ready with a laugh. We 
got to Porchester by boat, if the tide served ; if not, 
by rail part of the way and walking the rest. No 
one can ever be tired of Porchester. There are the 
old Roman walls, with their hollow bastions. One 
side faces the harbour, the magnus partus^ with a 
water-gate ; on the other side is a moat of Planta- 
genet addition. In one corner is a long narrow 
church with Saxon details, but rebuilt by the Nor- 
mans ; in its churchyard lie not only the bones of 
men-at-arms from the garrison and the rude fore- 

12 



SIR SALTER BESANT 

fathers of the hamlet, but also those of hundreds of 
French prisoners kept here during the long war of 
1795-18 1 5. A whole regiment of West Indian 
negroes — prisoners of war — died in one winter, 
and were buried in this churchyard. In another 
corner is a Norman castle, with its tall keep and its 
inner bastion. On our annual visit we began by 
climbing to the roof of the keep and by walking 
round the walls and looking into the chambers ; 
this done, we had tea in one of the houses outside 
the walls. There was no tea like the Porchester 
tea ; no bread like that of this happy village ; no 
butter, no cake, no shrimps comparable with theirs. 
After tea we walked home — seven miles. Pre- 
sently the sun went down: then the tall trees stood 
up against the sky like giants with long arms threat- 
ening ; the air became mysterious, charged with 
sounds the meaning of which we could not catch ; 
there were muffled notes of birds ; silly cockchafers 
buzzed about and flew in our faces. The party be- 
came silent, even D. A ceased to make jokes ; 

and the long mysterious march in the summer twi- 
light lingers in my memory for the solemn joy, the 
sense of mystery, the feeling of the life invisible 
which fell upon one at least of that small company. 
My father, who was born in the year 1 800, in the 
first month of the last year of the eighteenth century, 
could remember very well the French prisoners at 
Porchester. As a boy he would take a boat up the 
harbour and go to the castle to see the prisoners. 
He spoke of their vivacity, their little industries — 

13 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

they made all kinds of ingenious things — and their 
friendliness with the boys, who laughed at their 
lingo and tried to make them understand English. 
Somewhere about the year 1883 or so, I wrote a 
story called 'The Holy Rose^ in which 1 laid the scene 
partly in the village and castle of Porchester : — 

" The village of Porchester is a place of great antiquity, 
but it is little, and except for its old Castle of no account. 
Its houses are all contained in a single street, beginning at 
the Castle-gate and ending long before you reach the Ports- 
mouth and Fareham road, which is only a quarter of a 
mile from the Castle. Most of them are mere cottages, 
with thatched or red-tiled roofs, but they are not mean 
or squalid cottages ; the folk are well-to-do, though 
humble, and every house in the village, small or great, is 
covered all over, back and front, with climbing roses. 
The roses cluster over the porches, they climb over the 
red tiles, they peep into the latticed windows, they cover 
and almost hide the chimney. In the summer months the 
air is heavy with their perfume ; every cottage is a bower 
of roses ; the flowers linger sometimes far into the autumn, 
and come again with the first warm days of June. No- 
where in the country, I am sure, though I have seen a 
few other places, is there such a village for roses. Apart 
from its flowers, I confess that the place has little worthy 
of notice ; it cannot even show a church, because its church 
is within the Castle walls, and quite hidden from the vil- 
lage. The Castle, which, now that the long wars arc over, 
one hopes for many years, is silent and deserted, its ruined 
courts empty, its crumbling walls left to decay, presented 
a different appearance indeed in the spring of the year 
1802. For in those days it was garrisoned by two regi- 

14 



SIR JVALTER BESANT 

merits of militia, and was occupied by the prodigious 
number of eight thousand prisoners. 

"I am told that there are other ancient castles in the 
country even more extensive and more stately than Por- 
chester ; but I have never seen them, and am quite satis- 
fied to believe that for grandeur, extent, and the awe of 
antiquity, there can be none which can surpass, and few 
which can pretend to equal, this monument. It is cer- 
tainly ruinous in parts, yet still so strong as to serve for a 
great prison, but it is not overthrown, and its crumbling 
walls, broken roofs, and dismantled chambers surround the 
place with a solemnity which affects the most careless 
visitor. 

" It is so ancient that there are some who pretend that 
parts of it may belong to British times, while it is certain 
that the whole of the outer wall was built by the Romans, 
In imitation of their camps, it stands four-square, and has 
hollow round towers in the sides and at the corners. The 

spot was chosen, not at the mouth of the harbour the 

Britons having no means of attacking ships entering or 
going out — but at the very head of the harbour, where the 
creek runs up between the shallows, which are banks of 
mud at low water. Hither came the Roman galleys, laden 
with military stores, to land them under the protection of 
the Castle. When the Romans went away, and the 
Saxons came, who loved not fighting behind walls, they 
neglected the fortress, but built a church within the walls, 
and there laid their dead. When in their turn the Nor- 
mans came, they built a castle after their own fashion, 
within the Roman walls. This is the stronghold, con- 
taining four square towers and a fortified entrance. And 
the Normans built the water-gate, and the gate-tower. 
The rest of the great space became the outer bailey of the 

IS 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

Castle. They also added battlements to the wall, and dug 
a moat, which they filled with sea-water at high tide. 

"The battlements of the Normans are now broken 
down or crumbling away ; great patches of the rubble 
work have fallen here and there. Yet one can walk round 
the narrow ledge designed for the bowmen. The wall is 
crowned with waving grass and wallflowers, and up the 
sides grow elder-bushes, blackberry, ivy, and bramble, as 
luxuriantly as in any hedge beyond Portsdown. If you 
step out through the water-gate, which is now roofless, 
with little left to show its former splendour, except a 
single massive column, you will find, at high tide, the 
water lapping the lowest stones of the towers, just as it 
did when the Romans built them. Instead of the old 
galleys, which must have been light in draught to come up 
Porchcstcr Creek, there are now lying half a dozen boats, 
the whole fleet of the little village. On the other side 
of the water are the wooded islets of Great and Little 
Horsea, and I suppose they look to-day much as they did 
a thousand years ago. On this side you look towards the 
east ; but if you get to the south side of the Castle, and 
walk across a narrow meadow which lies between the wall 
and the sea, you have a very different view. For you 
look straight across the harbour to its very mouth, three 
miles away ; you gaze upon a forest of masts and upon 
ships of every kind, from the stately man-o'-war to the 
saucy pink, and, twenty years ago, of every nation — 
because, in those days, we seemed at war with half the 
world — from the French-built frigate, the most beautiful 
ship that floats, to the Mediterranean xebecque, all of them 
prizes. Here they lie, some ready for sea, some just ar- 
rived, some battered by shot, some newly repaired and 
fresh from the yard j some — it seems a cruel fate for 

i6 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

ships which have fought the battles of their country — 
converted into hulks for convicts and for prisoners ; some 
store-ships — why, there is no end to the number and the 
kind of the ships lying in the harbour. They could tell, 
if they could speak, of many a battle and many a storm ; 
some of them are as old as the days of Admiral Benbow ; 
one poor old hulk is so old that she was once a man-o'-war 
in the Dutch wars of Charles II., and carried on board, it 
is said, the Duke of York himself." 

I have put so much of my own childhood into 
that book that I must quote from it again presently. 

Shortly after this story appeared I received a 
visit from a lady who told me a little anecdote and 
made me a little present. "In the year 1803," she 
said, with the solemnity and importance which be- 
longed to what she was about to give me, " when 
the war broke out again and Napoleon detained all 
the English travellers or visitors in France, my very 
dear old friend X. Y. was engaged to be married. 
Her lover, however, who was then in Paris, was 
taken prisoner, although a civilian, and made to live 
at Verdun for eleven long years. The marriage was 
put off until he regained his liberty. Meantime my 
friend, with a fellow feeling for all prisoners, took 
lodgings at Portsmouth, and went by boat to Por- 
chester Castle every day. Here she occupied her- 
self, being the kindest and dearest of all women, in 
nursing the sick prisoners until the Peace of 18 14 
restored her lover. Among other things which, at 
her death, she bequeathed me, was a collection of 
things made by the French prisoners, and either 
2 17 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

bought by her or given to her. Among them is a 
dainty little box made of straw, with a piece of 
looking-glass in the lid. As you have written a 
story about the prisoners, I have brought it, and 
now give it to you. I want you to give it to your 
eldest daughter, and I will ask her to keep it in 
memory of those poor prisoners and my dear friend 
who helped them." 

A pretty story and a pretty gift. I gave it to my 
daughter, who keeps it among her treasures. 

In childhood, however, these things were as yet 
distant. It was enough to climb on the gun-carriage 
and to look out across the harbour upon the Castle 
and the Hill. There were flowers on the walls : 
the little pimpernel; the daisy; the buttercup; the 
dandelion (which was not to be picked, for some 
superstition) ; and, above all, the sweet and fragrant 
flower that we called the wild lily — the wild con- 
volvulus. This grew everywhere; on all the slopes 
and among all the bastions we gathered it by hand- 
fuls. I have always loved the perfume of this sweet 
flower. To this day, when I gather one of these 
flowers the fragrance sends me back to that old 
bastion, and I am once more standing, hoop in hand, 
looking across the harbour, my childish brain full of 
fancies and wonderings and vague longings, and a 
sense which has never left me that life is a great and 
wonderful gift, and that the Lord made his children 
for happiness. I do not say that this fine sentiment 
was clothed in words. But it was there — one of 
the long, long thoughts of childhood. 



SIR WALTER B ESA N T 

In my novel By Celias Arbour^ the narrator was 
a Pole, a son of one of the Polish exiles. I placed 
him under the care of a sailor's widow — a washer- 
woman — in order to describe the quarter; it was 
in Portsea, about which I rambled as a boy, 
looking at the odd and pretty things which the 
sailors brought home, and their wives put in the 
windows. 

" Mrs. Jeram was a weekly tenant in one of a row of 
small four-roomed houses known as Victory Row, which 
led out of Nelson Street, and was a broad, blind court, 
bounded on one side and at the end by the Dockyard wall. 
It was not a dirty and confined court, but quite the reverse, 
being large, clean, and a very Cathedral Close for quiet- 
ness. The wall, built of a warm red brick, had a broad 
and sloping top, on which grew wallflowers, long grasses, 
and stonecrop ; overhanging the wall was a row of great 
elms, in the branches of which there was a rookery, so that 
all day long you could listen, if you wished, to the talk of 
the rooks. Now this is never querulous, angry, or argu- 
mentative. The rook does not combat an adversary's 
opinion ; he merely states his own ; if the other one does 
not agree with him he states it again, but without temper. 
If you watch them and listen, you will come to the con- 
clusion that they are not theorists, like poor humans, but 
simply investigators of fact. It has a restful sound, the 
talk of rooks ; you listen in the early morning, and they 
assist your sleeping half-dream without waking you ; or in 
the evening they carry your imagination away td woods and 
sweet country glades. They have cut down the elms now, 
and driven the rooks to find another shelter. Very likely, 
in their desire to sweep away everything that is pretty, they 

19 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

have torn the wallflowers and grasses ofF the wall as well. 
And if these are gone, no doubt Victory Row has lost its 
only charm. If I were to visit it now, I should proba- 
bly find it squalid and mean. The eating of the tree of 
knowledge so often makes things that once we loved look 
squalid. 

" But to childhood nothing is unlovely in which the 
imagination can light upon something to feed it. It is the 
blessed province of all children, high and low, to find 
themselves at the gates of Paradise, and quite certainly 
Tom the Piper's son, sitting under a hedge with a raw 
potato for plaything, is every bit as happy as a little Prince 
of Wales. The possibilities of the world which opens out 
before us are infinite ; while the glories of the world we 
have left behind are still clinging to the brain, and shed a 
supernatural colouring on everything. At six, it is enough 
to live ; to awake in the morning to the joy of another 
day ; to eat, sleep, play, and wonder ; to revel in the 
vanities of childhood ; to wanton in make-belief superi- 
ority; to admire the deeds of bigger children; to emulate 
them, like Icarus; and too often, like that greatly daring 
youth, to fall. 

"Try to remember, if you can, something of the mental 
attitude of childhood ; recall, if you may, some of the long 
thoughts of early days. To begin with — God was quite 
close to you, up among the stars ; He was seated some- 
where, ready to give you whatever you wanted ; everybody 
was a friend, and everybody was occupied all day long 
about your personal concerns'; you had not yet arrived at 
the boyishness of forming plans for the future. You were 
still engaged in imitating, exercising, wondering. Every 
man was a demi-god — you had not yet arrived at the 
consciousness that you might become yourself a man; the 

20 



SIR fFJLTER BESANT 

resources of a woman — to whom belong bread, butter, 
sugar, cake, and jam — were unbounded ; everything that 
you saw was full of strange and mysterious interest. You 
had not yet learned to sneer, to criticise, to compare, and 
to down-cry. 

"Mrs. Jeram's house, therefore, in my eyes, contained 
everything the heart of man could crave for. The green- 
painted door opened into a room which was at once 
reception-room, dining-room, and kitchen ; furnished, too, 
though that I did not know, in anticipation of the present 
fashion, having plates of blue and white china stuck round 
the walls. The walls were built of that warm red brick 
which time covers with a coating of grey-like moss. You 
find it everywhere among the old houses of the south of 
England ; but I suppose the clay is all used up, because I 
see none of it in the new houses. 

"We were quite respectable people in Victory Row; of 
that I am quite sure, because Mrs. Jeram would have made 
the place much too lively, by the power and persistence of 
her tongue, for other than respectable people. We were 
seafaring folk, of course ; and in every house was some- 
thing strange from foreign parts. To this day I never see 
anything new in London shops or in museums without a 
backward rush of associations which lands me once more 
in Victory Row ; for the sailors' wives had all these things 
long ago, before inland people ever heard of them. There 
were Japanese cabinets, picked up in Chinese ports long 
before Japan was open ; there was curious carved wood 
and ivory work from Canton. These things were got 
during the Chinese war. And there was a public-house in 
a street hard by which was decorated, instead of with a red 
window-blind, like other such establishments, with a splen- 
did picture representing some of the episodes in that 

21 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

struggle : all the Chinese were running away in a dis- 
graceful stampede, while Jack Tar, running after them, 
caught hold of their pigtails with the left hand, and deftly 
cut off their heads with the right, administering at the same 
time a frolicsome kick. John Chinaman's legs were 
generally both off the ground together, such was his fear. 
Then there were carved ostrich eggs ; wonderful things 
from the Brazils in feathers; frail delicacies in coral from 
the Philippines, known as Venus's flower-baskets ; grue- 
some-looking cases from the West Indies, containing 
centipedes, scorpions, beetles, and tarantulas ; small turtle 
shells, dried flying-fish, which came out in moist exudations 
during wet weather, and smelt like haddock ; shells of all 
kinds, big and little ; clubs, tomahawks, and other queer 
weapons, carved in wood, from the Pacific ; stuffed hum- 
ming-birds, and birds of Paradise. There were live birds, 
too — avvadavats, Java sparrows, love-birds, parroquets, 
and parrots in plenty. There was one parrot, at the 
corner house, which affected the ways of one suffering 
from incurable consumption — he was considered intensely 
comic by children and persons of strong stomach and small 
imagination. There were parrots who came, stayed a little 
while, and then were taken away and sold, who spoke 
foreign tongues with amazing volubility, who swore worse 
than Cresset's Vert Vert, and who whistled as beautifully 
as a boatswain — the same airs, too. The specimens 
which belonged to Art or inanimate Nature were ranged 
upon a table at the window. They generally stood or 
were grouped round a large Bible, which it was a point of 
ceremonial to have in the house. The live birds were 
hung outside in sunny weather, all except the parrot with 
the perpetual cold, who walked up and down the court by 
himself and coughed. The streets surrounding us were, 

22 



SIR PFJLTER BESJNT 

like our own, principally inhabited by mariners and their 
families, and presented similar characteristics; so that one 
moved about in a great museum, open for general inspection 
during daylight, and free for all the world. Certain I am 
that if all the rare and curious things displayed in these 
windows had been collected and preserved, the town 
would have had a most characteristic and remarkable 
museum of its own. 

" Among my early friends were one or two of the Polish 
exiles and refugees who lived at Portsmouth and were pen- 
sioned by our Government. The man called Wassielewski 
was my especial friend. 

" They had a great barrack all to themselves, close to 
the walls, whither I used to be sometimes carried. It was 
a narrow building, built of black-tarred wood, with windows 
at both sides, so that you saw the light quite through the 
house. 

" It stood just under the walls, almost in the shade of 
the great elms. Within it were upwards of a hundred 
Poles, living chiefly on the tenpence a day which the Eng- 
lish Government allowed them for their support, with this 
barn-like structure to house them. They were desperately 
poor, all of them living mostly on bread and frugal cabbage- 
soup. Out of their poverty, out of their tenpence a day, 
some of these poor fellows found means by clubbing to- 
gether to pay Mrs. Jeram, week by week, for my support. 
They went hungry that I might eat and thrive ; they came 
every day, some of them, to see that I was well cared for. 
They took me to their barrack, and made me their pet 
and plaything ; there was nothing they were not ready to do 
for me, because I was the child of Roman Pulaski and 
Claudia his wife. 

*' The one who came oftenest, stayed the longest, and 

23 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

seemed in an especial manner to be my guardian, was a 
man who was grey when I first remember him. He had 
long hair and a full grey beard. There was a great red 
gash in his cheek, which turned white when he grew ex- 
cited or was moved. He limped with one foot, because 
some musket ball had struck him in the heel ; and he had 
singularly deep-set eyes, with heavy eyebrows. I have never 
seen anything like the sorrowfulness of Wassielewski's eyes. 
Other Poles had reason for sorrow. They were all exiles 
together, they were separated from their families, without 
a hope that the terrible Nicolas, who hated a rebel Pole 
with all the strength of his autocratic hatred, would ever let 
them return ; they were all in poverty, but these men looked 
happy. Wassielewski alone never smiled, and carried al- 
ways that low light of melancholy in his eyes, as if not only 
the past was sad, but the future was charged with more 
sorrow. On one day in the year he brought me immortelles^ 
tied with a black ribbon. He told me they were in memory 
of my father, Roman Pulaski, now dead and in heaven, and 
of my mother, also dead, and now sitting among the saints 
and martyrs. I used to wonder at those times to see the 
eyes which rested on me so tenderly melt and fill with tears. 
" My early childhood, spent among these kindly people, 
was thus very rich in the things which stimulate the ima- 
gination. Strange and rare objects in every house, in every 
street something from far-off lands, talk to be heard of 
foreign ports and bygone battles, the poor Poles in their 
bare and gaunt barracks, and then the place itself. I have 
spoken of the rookery beyond the flower-grown Dockyard 
wall. But beyond the rookery was the Dockyard itself, 
quiet and orderly, which I could see from the upper 
window of the house. There was the Long Row, where 
resided the Heads of Departments ; the Short Row, in 

24 



SIR WALTER B ES J N T 

which lived functionaries of lower rank — I believe the two 
Rows do not know each other in society ; there was the 
great reservoir, supported on tall and spidery legs, beneath 
which stood piles of wood cut and dressed, and stacked for 
use ; there was the Rope Walk, a quarter of a mile long, in 
which I knew walked incessantly up and down the workmen 
who turned hanks of yarn into strong cables smelling of 
fresh tar; there were the buildings where other workmen 
made blocks, bent beams, shaped all the parts of ships ; 
there were the great places where they made and repaired 
machinery ; there were the sheds themselves, where the 
mighty ships grew slowly day by day, miracles of man's 
constructive skill, in the dim twilight of their wooden 
cradles ; there was a pool of sea water in which lay timber 
to be seasoned, and sometimes I saw boys paddling up and 
down in it ; there was always the busy crowd of officers and 
sailors going up and down, some of them god-like, with 
cocked hats, epaulettes and swords. 

" And all day long, never ceasing, the busy sound of the 
Yard. To strangers and visitors it was just a confused 
and deafening noise. When you got to know it, you dis- 
tinguished half-a-dozen distinct sounds which made up that 
inharmonious and yet not unpleasing whole. There was 
the chatter of the caulkers' mallets, which never cease 
their tap, tap, tap, until you got used to the regular beat, 
and felt it no more than you feel the beating of your pulse. 
But it was a main part of the noise which made the life of 
the Yard. Next to the multitudinous mallets of the 
caulkers, which were like the never-ceasing hum and 
whisper of insects on a hot day, came the loud clanging 
of the hammer from the boiler-makers' shop. That might 
be likened, by a stretch of fancy, to the crowing of cocks 
in a farmyard. Then, all by itself, came a heavy thud 

25 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

which made the earth tremble, echoed all around, and 
silenced for a moment everything else. It came from the 
Nasmyth steam hammer ; and always running through all, 
and yet distinct, the r-r-r-r of the machinery, like the rus- 
tling of the leaves in the wind. Of course I say nothing 
about salutes, because every day a salute of some kind was 
thundering and rolling about the air as the ships came and 
went, each as tenacious of her number of guns as an Indian 
Rajah. 

"Beyond the Dockyard — you could not see it, but you 
felt it, and knew that it was there — was the broad blue lake 
of the harbour, crowded with old ships sacred to the mem- 
ory of a hundred fights, lying in stately idleness, waiting 
for the fiat of some ignorant and meddling First Lord 
ordering them to be broken up. As if it were anything 
short of wickedness to break up any single ship which has 
fought the country's battles and won her victories, until the 
tooth of Time, aided by barnacles, shall have rendered it 
impossible for her to keep afloat any longer. 

" When the last bell rang at six o'clock, and the work- 
men went away, all became quiet in the Dockyard. A 
great stillness began suddenly, and reigned there till the 
morning, unbroken save by the rooks which cawed in the 
elms, and the clock which struck the hours. And then 
one had to fall back on the less imaginative noises of Vic- 
tory Row, where the parrot coughed, and the grass widows 
gathered together, talking and disputing in shrill concert, 
and Leonard fought Moses before going to bed, not with- 
out some din of battle." 

In the same novel I have described the Com- 
mon Hard, as I remember it in my childhood as 
follows : — 

26 



SIR IVALTER BESANT 

" The Common Hard is still, after all the modern 
changes, a street with a distinct character of its own. 
The houses still look out upon the bright and busy har- 
bour, though there is now a railway terminus and an ugly 
pier; though steam launches run across the water; and 
though there are telegraph posts, cabs, and omnibuses, all 
the outward signs of advanced civilisation. But thirty 
years ago it was a place which seemed to belong to the 
previous century. There were no great houses and hand- 
some shops, but in their place a picturesque row of ir- 
regular cottages, no two of which were exactly alike, but 
which resembled each other in certain particulars. They 
were two-storeyed houses ; the upper storey was very low, 
the ground-floor was below the level of the street. I do 
not know why, but the fact remains that in my town the 
ground-floors of all the old houses were below the level 
of the pavement. You had to stoop, if you were tall, to 
get into the doorway, and then, unless you were experi- 
enced, you generally fell headlong down a step of a foot 
or so. Unless the houses were shops they had only one 
window below and one above, because the tax on windows 
obliged people to economise their light. The roofs were 
of red tiles, high-pitched, and generally broken-backed ; 
stone-crop and house-leek grew upon them. The Hard 
existed then only for the sailors. There were one or two 
jewellers who bought as well as sold ; many public-houses, 
and a plentiful supply of rascally pay-agents. That side 
had little interest for boys. In old times the high tide had 
washed right up to the foot of these houses, which then 
stood upon the beach itself. But they built a stone wall, 
which kept back the water, and allowed a road to be made, 
protected by an iron railing. An open space gave access 
to what was called the ' beach,' being a narrow spit of 

27 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

land, along which were ranged on either side the wherries 
of the boatmen. A wooden bench was placed along the 
iron railings near the beach, on which sat every day and 
all day long old sailors, in a row. It was their club, their 
daily rendezvous, the place where they discussed old battles, 
smoked pipes, and lamented bygone days. They never 
seemed to walk about or to care much where they sat. 
They sat still, and sat steadily, in hot weather and in cold. 
The oddest thing about this line of veterans was that they 
all seemed to have wooden legs. There was, or there 
exists in my memory, which is the same thing, a row of 
wooden pegs which did duty for the lost legs, sticking out 
straight in front of the bench when they were on it. The 
effect of this was very remarkable. Some, of course, had 
lost other outlying bits of the human frame ; a hand, the 
place supplied by a hook, like that of Cap'en Cuttle, whose 
acquaintance I formed later on ; a whole arm, its absence 
marked by the empty sleeve sewn to the front of the 
jersey ; and there were scars in plenty. Like my friends 
the Poles, these heroes had gained their scars and lost their 
limbs in action. 

" Thirty years ago we were only a quarter of a century 
or so from the long and mighty struggle which lasted for 
a whole generation, and filled this seaport town with pros- 
perity, self-satisfaction, and happiness. Oh, for the brave 
old days when week after week French, American, Spanish, 
and Dutch prizes were towed into harbour by their victors, 
or sailed in, the Union Jack flying at the peak, the original 
crew safe under hatches, in command of a middy, and 
half-a-dozen British sailors told off to take her home. 
They talked, these old grizzle-heads, of fights and convoys, 
and perilous times afloat. I sat among them, or stood in 
front of them, and listened. Child as I was, my little 

28 



SIR PFALTER BESANT 

heart glowed to hear how, yardarm to yardarm, they lay 
alongside the Frenchman ; how a dozen times over the 
plucky little French beggars tried to board them ; how she 
sheered off at last, and they followed, raking her fore and 
aft ; how she suddenly broke out into flame, and before 
you could say ' Jack Robinson,' blew up, with all that was 
left of a thousand men aboard ; with merry yarns of 
Chinese pigtails, made to be pulled by the British sailor, 
and niggers of Jamaica, and Dutchmen at the Cape. 
Also, what stories of slavers, of catching American skippers 
in the very act of chucking the niggers overboard, of 
cutting out Arab dhows, of sailing in picturesque waters 
where the natives swim about in the deep like porpoises ; 
of boat expeditions up silent rivers in search of piratical 
Malays ; of lying frozen for months in Arctic regions, 
long before they thought of calling men heroes for passing 
a single winter on the ice with every modern appliance for 
making things comfortable." 

Here is a picture of a scene which I often wit- 
nessed — feast and merriment, mad and loud and 
furious, and full of things to make the moralist 
weep. I have stood at the open door, looking in 
for half an hour at a time at the sailors dancing 
hornpipes and the girls dancing jigs, and all singing 
and drinking together. Do you suppose it does a 
child any harm to see such things ? Not a bit, so 
long as he knows not what such things mean ; the 
thing is like a lovely act in a beautiful play : the 
music of the fiddles is heavenly, the laughter and 
the joy of the nymphs and sailors is like a part of 
Paradise. I quote from By Celias Arbour : — 

29 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

" We came to a public-house j that one with the picture 
outside it of the Chinese war. There was a long, low 
sort of hall within it, at the end of which Wassielewski 
took his place, and began to fiddle again. Dancing then 
set in, though it was still early in the morning, with great 
severity. With dancing, drink; with both, songs; with 
all three, Wassielewski's fiddle. I suppose it was the com- 
mencement of a drunken orgic, and the whole thing was 
disgraceful. Remember, however, that it was more than 
thirty years ago, when the Navy still retained its old tradi- 
tions. Foremost among them was the tradition that being 
ashore meant drink as long as the money lasted. It some- 
times lasted a week, or even a fortnight, and was sometimes 
got through in a day or two. There were harpies and 
pirates in every house which was open to Jack. Jack, in- 
deed, was cheated wherever he went. Afloat, he was robbed 
by the purser ; he was ill-fed and found, the Government 
paying for good food and good stores, contractors and pur- 
veyors combining with the purser to defraud him. Ashore, 
he was horribly, shamefully cheated and robbed when he 
was paid off by a Navy bill, and fell into the hands of the pay 
agents. He was a rough-hided ruffian, who could fight, had 
seen plenty of fighting, was tolerably inured to every kind of 
climate, and ready to laugh at any kind of danger, except, 
perhaps, Yellow Jack. He was also tender-hearted and sen- 
timental. Sometimes he was away for five years at a stretch, 
and if his Captain chose to make it so, his life was a dog's 
life. Floggings were frequent ; rum was the reward of 
good conduct ; there were no Sailors' Homes, none of the 
many humanising influences which have made the British 
sailor the quiet, decorous creature, generally a teetotaller, 
and often inclined to a Methodist way of thinking in re- 
ligion, half soldier, half sailor, that he is at present. 

30 



SIR rVALTER BESANT 

" It was an orgie, I suppose, at which no child should 
have been present. Fortunately, at half-past twelve, the 
landlord piped all hands for dinner." 

I made friends, of course, with the veterans. 
Sometimes I ventured on a little offering of tobacco. 
One of them, a very ancient mariner, used always 
to declare that he had been cabin boy under Cap- 
tain Cook when that great navigator was murdered. 
It was possible. The time when I knew this ven- 
erable old salt was about the year 1848. Cook died 
in 1779. l^ my friend was born in 1765 he might 
very well have been a cabin boy in 1779. And in 
1848 he would have been eighty-three years of age. 
A good many of these old sailors lived to be past 
eighty. Of course, all these veterans belonged to 
the long wars of 1795— 1815. 

Another recollection. There were convict hulks 
in the harbour ; the convicts were set to do the 
work of excavating, etc., for docks, and other things 
of the kind. Of course they were closely watched 
by warders armed with loaded muskets. Now there 
was one thing which these poor wretches ardently 
desired — tobacco. To give tobacco to a convict 
was, of course, forbidden, or to speak to him or to 
make any kind of communication to them. It was 
my practice, therefore, to get a lump of the rough, 
strong roll tobacco, put it in my pocket and loiter 
about as near to a convict as I could get without 
exciting suspicion. The man for his part would 
work in my direction ; he knew perfectly well what 
was intended. I waited until the nearest warder 

31 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

had his eyes the other way, and then jerked the 
quid as near the convict as I could. He raised his 
spade and began to scrape the instrument as if 
something was in the way. Then he put his foot 
on the quid, scraped again, and stooping in the 
most natural way in the world, as if to get rid of a 
stone, he picked up the quid and continued his 
work — watching the warder. As soon as his eye 
was turned, he put the quid in his mouth, and for 
the remainder of that day, certainly, he was a happy 
man. 



32 



SIR tV A LT E R B E S A N 2' 



Chapter II 

CHILD AND BOY {continued) 

LET me speak, reverently, as indeed I must, 
of the home Hfe and the family circle. My 
^ father was the youngest of ten children ; 
he was born at the beginning of the year 1800; 
consequently, he belonged to the eighteenth century. 
His father, who was in some branch of the Civil 
Service, died, I believe, about the year 1825. Of 
him I have no tradition save that he went to his 
club every evening — this means his tavern — return- 
ing home for supper at nine punctually ; that he 
was somewhat austere — or was it only of uncertain 
temper? — and that his daughters on hearing the 
paternal footstep outside always retreated to bed. 
Out of the ten children I only know of eight. 
Two of them were in the Navy ; one died young, 
the other got into some trouble and had to leave 
the Service — perhaps, however, he was one of the 
officers who were dismissed on the reduction of 
the Navy to a peace footing. Another entered 
the Civil Service and rose to a highly respectable 
position ; he was the first of the name whose portrait 
was ever exhibited at the Royal Academy. Two 
of the daughters married, one of them a man of con- 
siderable fortune ; the other an official of the Dock- 
3 33 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

yard. As for my father, he tried many things. For 
some time he was in very low water ; then he got up 
again and settled in a quiet office. He was not a 
pushing man, nor did he know how to catch at 
opportunities. Mostly, he waited. Meantime he 
was a studious man, whose chief delight was in 
reading; he was especially well acquainted with the 
English drama, from Shakespeare to Sheridan ; and 
he had a good collection of plays, which he parted 
with when he thought that they might do harm to 
his boys. I had, however, by that time read them all, 
and I am sure that they never did any harm to me. 
He was a shy man, and very retiring ; he never 
went into any kind of society ; he belonged to no 
Masonic Lodge or other fraternity ; he would not 
take any part in municipal affairs ; he was fond of 
gardening, and had a very good garden, in which he 
spent the greater part of every morning ; and he 
asked for nothing more than an occasional visit in 
the afternoon from a friend and an evening quiet 
and free from interruption. 

He was never in the least degree moved by the 
Calvinistic fanaticism of the time. So called " re- 
ligious " people, those who had been under " con- 
viction," the " Lord's People " (as they arrogantly 
called themselves), were very much exercised about 
the Elect, their limited number, and the extreme 
uncertainty that any of their friends belonged to 
that select body. As for themselves, of course, 
they had no doubt. What was the meaning of 
Conviction unless it was also Election ? The Devils, 

34 



SIR WALTER B ES A N T 

they would say, believe and tremble. Assuredly 
they were not Devils. Therefore — but the con- 
clusion was illogical. Now my father took the 
somewhat original line of sticking to the rules and 
regulations. " The Lord," he said, " has laid down 
Rules plain and simple. There they are, written up 
on the wall of the Church and read out every Sun- 
day for everybody to hear. Very good ; I keep 
these Rules, and I go to Church every Sunday out 
of respect to the Almighty who drew up those 
Rules. No more can be expected of any man. As 
for what they talk, my boy, they can't talk away the 
plain Rules — because there they are ; and I don't 
find that the man who keeps those Rules is going 
to be damned, but quite the contrary." I have 
often wondered at this singular attitude, which was 
so entirely contrary to the habit of the time. But 
then my father did not altogether belong to the 
time. Although regular in attendance at church, 
he never ventured to present himself at Holy Com- 
munion. In this respect he did follow his own 
generation, in which the participation in the Sacra- 
ment was a profession of peculiar sanctity. Since 
we were warned how we might, by unworthily par- 
taking, cause our own damnation, it was generally 
felt that it was wiser not to run the risk. 

When I consider the extent of the Calvinistic 
teaching ; its dreadful narrowness ; the truly heart- 
less and pitiless way in which those solemn faces 
above the wobbling Geneva bands spoke of the 
small number of the Elect and the certainty of end- 

35 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

less torment for the multitude — the whole illus- 
trating the ineffable Love of God — I am amazed 
that people were as cheerful as they were. I 
suppose that people were accustomed to this kind 
of talk ; there was no question of rebellion ; nobody 
dared to doubt or disbelieve ; only, you see, the 
doctrine if realised would have made life intolerable ; 
the human affections only the source and spring of 
agony; religion a selfish, individual, doubtful hope; 
the closing years of old age a horrible anticipation 
of what was to follow. Therefore the thing was 
put away in silence ; it was brought out in two 
sermons every week ; it was regarded as a theolog- 
ical exercise in which the congregation could admire 
the intellectual subtleties by which every gracious 
word of Christ was, by some distortion of half a 
verse from Paul, turned into the exact opposite of 
what it meant. For my own part, I now under- 
stand what an excellent discipline the Sunday ser- 
vices were. No getting out of it on any terms ; 
two services and at each a sermon an hour long 
and sometimes more — doctrinal. Evangelical and 
Calvinistic. One had to sit quite still and awake ; 
not to wriggle ; not to whisper ; not to titter. As 
for the sermon itself, I enjoyed it very much. Of 
course I understood very early that the sermon had 
no bearing on my own conduct nor on any pros- 
pects I might have entertained concerning the life 
to come. Indeed, after I had read the Book of 
Revelations, which I did early, I disconnected 
Heaven altogether from the man with the white 

36 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

bands, and made up my mind that he was talking 
about something which was quite unconnected with 
the Apostle of Patmos — as indeed was the case. 
In church, therefore, I found many consolations for 
the length of the service. During the Litany and 
the Prayers I could bury my face in my hands and 
go off in dreams and imaginations — they were 
dreams of delight. During the sermon I could 
drop my eyes and carry on these dreams. To this 
day I can never listen to a sermon. The preachers 
begin — I try to give them a chance. Then the 
old habit returns. Involuntarily my eyes drop, I 
fly away, I am again John-o'-dreams. Perhaps 
that is the reason why I have not been to church, 
except once or twice, for nearly thirty years. I 
except the Cathedral service, which does not mean 
a sermon. I go into St. Paul's or Westminster if 
I am passing by, and sit in a corner till the anthem 
is over. Then I get up and walk out, my soul 
refreshed with the prayer and praise of the choir 
and organ. 

It was another great stroke of good luck — see 
what good things were provided for me by Fortune ! 
— that we had a small library. Very few middle- 
class people in my childhood had any books to 
speak of, except a few shelves filled with dreary 
divinity or old Greek and Latin Classics. We had 
an excellent collection of books. There were, I 
remember, Don ^ixote^ Robinson Crusoe^ Bunyan's 
works, Marryat's works, and those of Dickens 
which were then written ; all Miss Edgeworth's 

37 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

books, Hume and Smollett's History^ Conder's 
'Traveller J the Spectator and the Guardian ; Sterne's 
works, and some of Swift's ; Pope's Homer and some 
of his other poems ; Goldsmith's works complete ; 
the Waverley Novels ; Byron, Wordsworth, and a 
number of minor poets ; whole shelves of plays ; 
some volumes of an Encyclopedia ; two volumes, 
very useful to me, called Elegant Extracts ; histories 
of France, Rome, and Greece ; Washington Irving's 
works, and a good many others. Besides which, I 
saved up my pocket-money and belonged to the 
" Athenasum," which had a small lending library. 
For a boy who loved books beyond and above 
everything, here was a collection that lasted till I 
was twelve, at least. I was encouraged to read not 
only by my father's example, but by my mother's 
exhortations and approval* She saw in learning a 
hope for the future ; she had ambitions for her boys, 
though she kept these ambitions to herself. 

Let me speak once for all about my mother. 
She was a New Forest girl, born and brought up in 
a village called Dibden, near Hythe and Beaulieu 
(Bewlay). The church stands actually in the Forest ; 
a peaceful, quiet church, to which I once paid a pil- 
grimage. My mother was the youngest of a large 
family. During her childhood she ran about on 
the outskirts of the Forest, catching and riding the 
bare-backed ponies, and drinking in the folklore and 
old-wife wisdom of that sequestered district. At 
eighteen years of age, I think in 1825, she married 
and came to Portsmouth to live. Her father was 

38 



SIR PF A LT E R B ES A N T 

not a New Forest man ; he came from Lincolnshire, 
his name being Eddis. Her mother belonged to 
an old New Forest race of farmers or yeomen 
named Nowell. Her father was by trade or pro- 
fession a builder, contractor, and architect. Some 
portions of Hurst Castle were built by him. I 
imagine that his business lay chiefly in Southamp- 
ton, and that his family lived for convenience of 
country air across the water. He died comparatively 
young, and his large family seems to have dwindled 
down to a very few descendants, one branch of 
whom alone is known to me at the present 
moment. 

My mother was the cleverest woman I have ever 
known : the quickest witted ; the surest and safest 
in her judgments ; the most prophetic for those she 
loved ; the most far-seeing. Her education had 
been what you might expect in a village between 
the years 1807, when she was born, and 1825, when 
she married. But it sufficed — because it was not 
book-learning that she wanted for the care and up- 
bringing of the children, for whom she rose early 
and worked late. I have said that ours was a 
household in which economy had to be practised, 
but without privation. The comfort of the house, 
the well-being of the children, were alike due to my 
mother's genius for administration. Imagine, if 
you can, her pride and joy when her eldest child, 
her eldest son, took prizes and scholarships at 
Cambridge ; was first, year after year, in his college 
examinations, and finished by becoming senior 

39 



AUTOBIOGRAPHl" OF 

wrangler and first Smith's Prizeman ! It was my 
happiness, twenty years afterwards, to make her 
proud of her third son, who was gaining some 
success in other fields. When I think of such 
imaginative gifts as I have possessed, I go back in 
memory to the old times when we sat at my 
mother's feet in blindman's holiday, when the sun 
had gone down, but the lights were not brought in, 
and she would tell us stories of the New Forest; 
when I, for one, would listen, gazing into the red 
coals and seeing, as in a procession, the figures of 
the story pass before me and act their parts between 
the bars. She gave me such imaginative powers as 
have enabled me to play my part as a novelist ; it 
is my inheritance from her. To others of her chil- 
dren she gave other gifts ; to one the mathematical 
mind ; to another a marvellous memory and a 
grasp of figures quite remarkable ; to a third she 
gave the rapid mind which seizes facts and jumps 
at conclusions while others are groping after the 
main issues ; to another she gave the eye and the 
hand of the artist — though this gift was unhappily 
wasted. 

When I grew older I began to desire to see 
things of which the books that I had read were full. 
Now Portsea Island is excellently placed to give a 
boy a right understanding of the sea and of ships, 
and of the folk who go upon the sea in ships ; but 
it is a perfectly flat island, nowhere more than a 
few feet above the high-tide level ; there are no 
streams upon it ; there are no woods ; there are no 

40 



SIR WALTER B ES A N T 

hills ; there are no villages ; there are no village 
churches ; there is no pleasant country. Only in 
one place, on the east side where they once began 
to make a canal leading from nothing to nowhere, 
there is a wild tract of land looking out across 
Langston Harbour, a lagoon on whose broad 
bosom there are no ships, and the only boats are 
the duck hunters' broad flat craft with outriggers. 
Beyond the island, however, and on the mainland, 
there was another kind of country, a Delectable 
Land. 

When I was about twelve or so it was a joy to 
me to walk four miles to the little village of Co- 
sham, on the mainland, and so over Portsdown 
Hill into the lovely country beyond; the lane led 
past a picturesque old church, concealed among the 
trees and far from any village. I have found many 
Hampshire churches hidden away in woods far 
from any hamlet. The church of Rowner, near 
Gospdrt, that of Widley, behind Portsdown, that of 
Dibden, near Hythe, where my mother's people are 
buried, occur to me. I suppose that the parishes 
were large, and that the church, having to serve 
several hamlets, was placed in a spot most con- 
venient for all. It was at Widley Church that I first 
felt the charm of things ancient. To sit in a lonely 
churchyard among trees and mouldering mounds, 
and to gaze upon a venerable house which has 
soothed and consoled generations — say from the 
time when King Alfred brought back the scattered 
priests to Wessex — to be all alone, with the im- 

41 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

agination of a child and the knowledge of a bookish 
boy ; to feed the imagination with the long thoughts 
of childhood, was a kind of ecstasy. It seemed as 
if I was nearer the gates of heaven than I have ever 
since attained — 

— *• but now 'tis little joy 

To find that heaven is farther off 

Than when I was a boy." 

Beyond the church, the lane led to a stream — 
the first stream I had ever seen, bright, swift, bab- 
bling and bubbling over the stones. Over it grew 
the trees — I forget what trees — indeed, I knew 
not then what they were ; a fallen branch lay across 
the stream ; dragon flies gleamed in bright flashes 
over the water; the forest was loud with the song 
of birds ; the heavy bumble-bee droned about the 
flowers ; and I am sure that there were more but- 
terflies, especially the little blue ones — perhaps 
the prettiest of all — than I have seen elsewhere. 
I should be afraid to go to Widley Church again. I 
should perhaps find it restored or rebuilt ; and per- 
haps the lane has houses in it. Let it remain a 
memory. 

I was therefore a town lad — or a seaport lad ; 
the things of Nature, the birds, the flowers, the 
trees, the woods, the stream, the creatures, were not, 
so to speak, a part of me. To begin with, I was 
always shortsighted. I therefore saw little of the 
endless variety in form, colour, and curve. The 
shapes of the leaves ; the variations of the flowers ; 

42 



SIR IVJLTER BESANT 

the flight and the differences of the birds ; the small 
things of Nature, — these I have never seen, to my 
infinite loss. I went among the woods as a stran- 
ger ; I had no plant lore, wild-flower lore, wood 
lore ; I have never acquired any. In all the years 
since then I have read but little in the book of 
Nature. In the printed book, to be sure, I have 
read a great deal about Nature. It is something, 
but not everything. And as regards Nature I do 
not know whether it is better to read of what you 
know or of what you know nothing. Richard Jef- 
feries walks along a hedge and talks to me. It is 
like the uplifting of a veil ; I am conscious that my 
senses are imperfect ; I am not only shortsighted 
but I am slow-sighted ; it takes time for me to 
make out things clearly. Again, in the sense of 
smell I have not, I am convinced, anything like the 
acuteness of those who have lived much in the 
country. I have a companion (who has tried to 
teach me all she knows), who finds, I am aware, a 
thousand breaths of fragrance where I find only one. 
She hears in the warbling of the woods a hundred 
notes, and distinguishes them all — to me they are 
mostly alike ; she knows all the trees, with the in- 
finite varieties of leaf, of colour, of bough and 
branch, with the loveliness and the charm that be- 
long to each — I take them all together ; she 
knows all the wild flowers and loves them every 
one for its own sake and for its own special charm 
— I love them all together. This comes of a child- 
hood spent In streets and on the seashore ; and of a 

43 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

boyhood wherein the leisure hours were chiefly 
passed coiled up in a corner, nose in book. 

In recalling those days it is difficult to separate 
them from the imaginary characters of my novel — 
By Celias Arbour. When I think of the Dockyard 
I see the two boys, Ladislas and Leonard, peering 
into the twilight of the long rope-walk ; being 
launched on board a three-decker ; rowing about in 
the mast pond ; watching the semaphore and trying 
to read its signals ; looking into the building-sheds 
and standing aside to let the Port Admiral pass. 
When I think of Southsea Common, I see an open 
heath behind a bank of shingle and sand, with a 
marsh and a tiny rivulet on one side and a broader 
marsh on the other ; and, standing by itself, the grey 
old castle on the shore. It is not myself who is run- 
ning across that heath, but those two boys, who share 
between them my identity ; one is tall and handsome, 
with a brave and gallant air ; the other is short and 
hump-backed. These two boys take my place on 
the beach and plunge side by side through the 
breakers ; they row out to Spithead on summer 
evenings after sunset, when the grey twilight falls 
upon the sea, and no knell of the bell buoy saddens 
the soul ; they pull that dead man out of the water 
whom once I found rolledover and overon theshingle ; 
they row about among the hulks and worn-out ships 
up the harbour ; they stand on the "logs" and watch 
the man-o'-war's boat come alongside under charge of 
the little middy, who marches along the wooden pier 
with so much pride, the object of envy and of longing. 

44 



SIR fTJLTER B ES A NT 

The boys are imaginary ; the real hero of that 
story, " the Captain," is not. To thy memory, dear 
old Captain, let me write one more line. He was 
the friend of all boys ; he was the benefactor of 
many boys ; he pulled them out of the gutter, and 
had them taught and sent them into the Navy ; and 
this silently, so that his left hand knew not what 
was done by his right hand. There were women 
whom he pulled out of the lowest gutters and be- 
friended — but I know not how ; to me and mine 
he was a kind of " pal," to use the word which 
then we knew not ; he understood children and he 
understood boys. We talked freely together, as a 
young boy with an old boy. In winter the Captain 
was dressed all in blue, with the navy button ; in 
summer he wore white ducks, a white waistcoat, 
and a big coat with the navy button — the crown 
and anchor. I think that he wore this half-pay 
uniform on Sundays only. On other days he was in 
mufti. He was a bachelor, and lived in a house over- 
looking the mill-dam. At church his pew was next to 
ours ; and as we were too many for our square box, 
we overflowed into his long box. The hymn books, 
I remember, were locked up in a receptacle at the 
end of the pew. When the hymns were given out 
he produced a bunch of keys. " Get out the tools, 
my boy," he would say in a loud whisper ; " they 
are now going to squall." I never understood his 
objection to the hymns, but I think he disliked the 
assistance of a paid choir. To be sure, it was a 
very bad choir, and the squalling was slow and pro- 

45 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

longed. The Captain's behaviour in church was in 
other respects exemplary. He sat bolt upright, 
preserving the appearance of attention in the same 
attitude for the Litany as for the sermon. Church, 
for him, as to most old sailors, was part of the day's 
duty ; the performance of duty qualified the soul 
for promotion ; a simple religion, but one which 
works admirably in every branch of both Services, 
and should, I think, be transplanted into the life of 
the civilian. 

The church was large, and contained galleries ; 
the living was small, but the incumbent during the 
forties was a fine scholar, at one time Fellow of his 
college at Oxford, who had taken the church coupled 
with a school which was then attached to it. The 
school was, I think, founded with the church about 
the year 1730. Unfortunately it was not endowed. 
My father was educated at this school, and so were 
his brothers. Among his fellow-scholars and pri- 
vate friends was the late Sir Frederick Madden, the 
great antiquary. The school somehow or other — 
I know not why — went to pieces, somewhere in the 
forties. 

The Rev. H. A , the " perpetual curate," 

— an excellent and historical title, — was a short, 
sturdy man of corpulent habit and a very red face. 
He had an aggressive way of walking; he marched 
about fearlessly in all the courts and slums, of which 
there were many. He was of the school then called 
"High" — and I believe that he was as far above 
his brethren, who were all Evangelical, in ecclesias- 

46 



SIR fVALTER BESANT 

deal history as he was in Latin and Greek. After- 
wards I learned more about him. He had been 
captain of Westminster school ; at Oxford he had 
distinguished himself in the noble art of self-defence, 
and was champion light bruiser. That accounted 
for his aggressive walk. He also distinguished him- 
self by his scholarship. His sermons were written 
in excellent English. I have a volume of them 
still. He was further remarkable for a fine and dis- 
criminating taste in port ; such small additions as 
he made to his slender stipend by private tuition 
were expended, I have reason to believe, in that 
most excellent of wines. 

I heard, long years after, a piece of scandal con- 
cerning this scholar, which I repeat because it ex- 
plains the man. In a book of small edification 
called the Memoirs of Harriette Wilson^ there occurs 
what may be called an episode in the life of a noble 
lord. Harriette was one of a large family of daugh- 
ters, all beautiful, who were one after the other 
placed by the thoughtfulness of their parents under 
the protection of certain noblemen and gentlemen. 
The youngest sister, for Instance, was sold to Lord 

B , an aged person who retained the habits of 

his youth. Harriette relates how the girl went off 
crying and refused to be comforted, even when her 
sisters reminded her of the brilliant position she 
was about to occupy. However, she succeeded In 
making her protector marry her, and was left a very 
young widow. She resided at Melton Mowbray, 

and Mr. H. A , then a young don at Oxford, 

47 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

was accustomed to pay visits of condolence and 
consolation to her. I daresay it was not true, but 
the story somehow raised the subject of it in my 
estimation. A man incapable of love is only half 
a man ; a man who has loved, if not wisely, is still 
a man. 

My first school was kept by three sisters, daugh- 
ters of a retired naval surgeon. It was a cheerful 
school, and we all laughed a good deal. Two of 
the sisters were " serious," in the Evangelical lan- 
guage of the day; they had received "conviction;" 
in the words of the preacher, they were of the 
" Lord's people." The other, who was the eldest, 
was never " serious ; " she was a clever, thoughtful, 
kindly woman. She was a lifelong friend of my 

sisters, and married D. A , who, as I have said, 

used to accompany us every year to Porchester. 

My first independent reading was Robinson Crusoe, 
to which was added Pilgrim s Progress, the Book of 
Revelations, and certain tracts. How I came to 
read the Book of Revelations I do not know ; it 
terrified me horribly, while it attracted me. As 
regards the tracts, I suppose they were brought to 
the house by some of our " serious " friends. One 
of them spoke of a soul winging its flight to heaven, 
and I remember watching the tombs, especially 
those which were old and broken, in the hope of 
seeing with my own eyes a soul wing its flight to 
heaven. But I never did. 

At the age of nine I was sent as a private pupil 

to the Rev. H. A , already mentioned. He 

48 



SIR WALTER B ES A N T 

made me begin Greek and Latin at the same time. 
I had to learn by heart great quantities of Virgil 
and Homer before I could construe them. I also 
learned grammar in vast quantities. Most of the 
work was learning by heart and repetition. When 
I began to translate, which was very soon, my tutor 
took me along at a rapid rate ; I acquired a fair 
vocabulary, and learned to translate both Latin and 
Greek with commendable facility. Also I began 
to do Latin verses as soon as I could string a few 
words together. 

One thing I really could not approve in my ex- 
perience of H. A . It was his determination to 

drive the Church Catechism into my head. Every 
Monday morning I had to repeat the whole of it. 
Now for some perverse reason, although I could 
rattle off miles of Virgil and Homer, I could never 
get through the Catechism without breaking down. 
Generally it was in the answer to the question — 
" What desirest thou in the Lord's Prayer ? " 
There I met my fate ; there I broke down ; the 
cane was at hand — Whack ! whack ! 

I stayed with this tutor for two years or more. I 
declare that when I left him, at twelve years of age, 
I knew more Latin and Greek, I could write better 
verses, I could translate more readily than when I 
was eighteen. Alas ! had I continued with him for 
three or four years longer, he would have made me, 
I am certain, a fine scholar. But I left him. 

There had been, formerly, a grammar school at 
Portsmouth. It was endowed, I think, with an in- 
4 49 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

come of jC^oo a year; but in my time it was in de- 
cay ; very few boys went to it, and I am not certain 
whether it was still kept up. In Portsea there had 
been a grammar school — St. George's Grammar 
School — this was now closed. A new school had 
been created at Southsea, called St. Paul's Grammar 
School. It was a "proprietary" school, under a 
committee. It was founded about the year 1830, I 
believe, and had some reputation for turning out 
good scholars. My brother, the best man that ever 
came out of the school, was the captain in i 846, go- 
ing to Cambridge in October of that year. In 1848 
I was taken from my private tutor and placed at St. 
Paul's. I was then twelve years of age, and on 
account of my good Latin and Greek was put at 
once into the Fifth, among the boys of sixteen or 
seventeen. They used to bully me a little because 
I was very small and young, and I was generally at 
the top. The " head " had taken a fair place in 
mathematical honours, but, oh ! the difference in the 
classics ! There was no more learning by heart ; 
there was no more translating rapidly and with enthu- 
siasm ; the Latin verses were scamped. The school 
was ill-taught ; the masters quarrelled ; the boys 
were caned all day long. I think it must have been 
a good thing for everybody when the commitee, I 
know not why, agreed to shut up the school. They 
sold the building for a Wesleyan chapel, which it 
has continued to be until the present day. By this 
time I knew considerably less of Greek and Latin 
than when I left my tutor. On the other hand 

50 



SIR PF J L T E R B ES A N r 

there were gains. There were games, and fights ; 
the boys fought continually. And I made a begin- 
ning with mathematics ; my former tutor, poor man ! 
could hardly add up, and knew nothing of algebra 
or Euclid. 

The school was closed, and masters and boys dis- 
persed, multivious. I do not think that in after 
life I ever came across any of those who had been 
boys with me at that school. The French master, 
however, remained a friend of ours until his death, 
a great many years after, at a very advanced age. I 
have introduced him in a story called All in a Garden 
Fair, as a teacher of French in a girls' school : — 

" He was a little man, though his daughter looked as if 
she would be tall ; yet not a very little man. His narrow 
sloping shoulders — a feature one may remark more often 
in Paris than in London — his small head, and the neatness 
of his figure made him look smaller than he was. Small 
Englishmen — this man was a Frenchman — are generally 
sturdy and broad-shouldered, and nearly always grow fat 
when they reach the forties. But this was a thin man. 
In appearance he was extremely neat; he wore a frock- 
coat buttoned tightly ; behind it was a white waistcoat ; he 
had a flower in his button-hole ; he wore a pink and white 
necktie, very striking ; his shirt-front and cuffs were per- 
fect; his boots were highly polished ; he was five-and-forty, 
but looked thirty; his hair was quite black and curly, with- 
out a touch of white in it ; he wore a small black beard ; 
his eves were also black, and as bright as steel. It is 
perhaps misleading to compare them with steel, because it 
is aKvavs the villain whose eye glitters like steel. Now 
M. Hector Philipon was not a villain at all — by no 

51 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

means. The light in his eyes came from the kindness of 
his heart, not from any villainous aims or wicked passions, 
and in fact, though his beard and his hair were so very 
black — black of the deepest dye, such as would have 
graced even a wicked uncle — he frightened nobody, not 
even strangers. And of course everybody in those parts 
knew very well that he was a most harmless and amiable 
person. He had a voice deep and full, like the voice of a 
church organ ; honey-sweet, too, as well as deep. And at 
sight of his little girl those bright eyes became as soft as the 
eyes of a maiden in love. When he spoke, although his 
English was fluent and correct, you perceived a foreign 
accent. But he had been so long in the country, and so far 
away from his own countrymen, that the accent was slight." 

I was then sent, for a stop-gap, to a private 
school, recently opened by a clergyman who had 
been a dissenting minister, sometime a student, at 
Homerton. He was a kindly man, most anxious 
to do well by his boys, but unfortunately no 
scholar and no teacher. His school I believe lasted 
only for two or three years, when he gave it up and 
became chaplain to a gaol. I have nothing to record 
of the eighteen months spent with him, except that 
I forgot more of my Latin and Greek, and having 
very little to do for school work, I read pretty nearly 
everything that there was in the house to read. 

A boy who is ignorant of things may read the 
worst books in the world without harm. For my 
own part, I read Tristram Shandy through with 
the keenest delight. I adored the Captain and 
Corporal Trim, I found Dr. Slop delightful ; as to 

52 



SIR U^ALTER BESANT 

the double entendre with which this work is crammed 
from beginning to end, I understood nothing, not a 
single word. When, in after years, I took up the 
book again, I was amazed at the discovery of what 
was really meant in passages which had amused me 
even in my ignorance. 

This childish ignorance may sometimes lead one 
into strange confusions. I was one afternoon read- 
ing Walter Scott's Peveril of the Peak when two 
ladies called. After a few minutes of " manners " 
— z.^., I put down the book and sat bolt upright 
with folded hands — as no one noticed me I re- 
lapsed into the book, became absorbed, and forgot 
that any one was present. Presently I came upon 
a passage at which I burst out laughing. 

" What is your book, dear boy ? " asked one of 
the visitors. " Will you read us the amusing 
passage ? " 

The words were as follows. Alice was in the 
presence of the king. " Your Majesty," she said, 
" if indeed I kneel before King Charles, is the father 
of your subjects." " Of a good many of them," 
said the Duke of Buckingham, apart. 

The passage was an unfortunate one. I laughed 
because the immensity of the family tickled me. 
And in reading it again, I burst out into a fresh and 
inextinguishable laugh. Suddenly I became aware 
that no one else laughed, and that all faces were 
stony and all eyes directed into unconscious space. 
I stopped laughing with many blushes. But why 
no one laughed I could not tell. When they were 

53 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

gone I ran to my own room and read the passage 
again and again. I laughed till I cried. But I 
felt guilty, and I could not tell why no one else 
laughed — " Of a good many of them ! " What a 
family ! I am certain, however, that I was regarded 
ever after by those ladies, who did know what his 
Grace of Buckingham meant, as a boy of strange 
and precocious vice. 

After a time it was recognised that if I were to be 
perfectly equipped for the university and for holy 
orders I must no longer stay at this worthy person's 
private academy. For some reason or other I had 
always said that when I grew up I should be a 
clergyman. I should have preferred being a mid- 
shipman, but that was not possible when one was 
grown up. A clergyman — not that I had the 
least feeling of the responsibilities and the sacred 
character of the profession ; but it was clearly a 
beautiful thing to put on a white robe and make 
everybody sit quiet and orderly, and mute as mice 
while he read. My mother, like many women, was 
pleased to think that one of her children should take 
holy orders, and my decision was accepted as the 
sign of a true vocation. It was accepted, in fact, by 
myself as well as by my folk until, at the age of 
twenty-four, I made the discovery which forbade the 
fulfilment of my early promise. Had the prophet 
Samuel seceded from the temple, his mother Han- 
nah would not have grieved more than my mother 
to think that her ambitions for me in this direction 
were closed. 

54 



SIR WALTER BESANT 



Chapter III 

SCHOOL-BOY 

IN the year 1851 I was sent to a London subur- 
ban school, Stockwell Grammar School, chosen, 
I believe, because one of my brother's college 
friends had been there and recommended It. The 
school was one of a small group founded in the 
thirties and scattered about the suburbs, much 
nearer the City than would now be considered a 
good situation. They were "In connection" with 
King's College, London, and exclusively Anglican. 
The connection amounted to a yearly examination 
conducted by King's College, a yearly prize, and 
certain small privileges if one went from the school 
to the college. At our school It was considered 
the proper thing to go on to King's College, and 
there to take one of the scholarships. We did this 
nearly every year, for a good many years ; and for 
a small school we really did wonderfully well at 
Cambridge afterwards, always in the Mathematical 
Tripos. Among the old boys of this small sub- 
urban school I may mention the late Sir George 
Grove, Director of the Royal College of Music ; 
Sir Henry Harben, the statistician ; the Rev. 
Charles Voysey, of the Theistic Church ; W. H. H. 
Hudson, Professor of Mathematics at King's Col- 

55 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

lege, London ; Horace William Smith, Fellow of 
Trinity College, Cambridge; Arthur N. WoUaston, 
CLE., the Oriental Scholar; Sir Henry Irving, the 
actor ; and Charles Irving, C.M.G., late Auditor- 
General of the Straits Settlements and Resident 
Councillor of Malacca and Penang. For the rest, 
we had a good sprinkling of lawyers and clergymen, 
together with a solid phalanx of substantial City 
men. This is not a bad average in the thirty 
years' life of an insignificant school. 

There were about one hundred and twenty boys 
when I went there as a boarder with the head- 
master. He was a graduate of some distinction in 
classical honours at Trinity College, Dublin ; he 
was a solid scholar, but certainly not a fine scholar. 
His methods were of the old-fashioned kind — the 
cast-iron kind — the boys were put through daily 
grammar and exercises, construing and parsing. The 
method as an educational discipline was no doubt 
admirable, but it gave no command of the language. 
Unfortunately the same method was applied to 
Greek and to French. It did not occur to school- 
masters of that time that our own language afforded 
ample scope for this kind of discipline, and that in 
Greek and French we might at least have been 
taught the language, leaving the syntax to take care 
of itself. I believe that the same ridiculous pretence 
at teaching French is still kept up ; in our time we 
read Corneille and Racine. Imagine the usefulness 
of Racine in teaching modern French ! The great- 
est linguist I have ever known began always with 

56 



SIR fFJLTER BESJNT 

finding out the group of words in which a language 
might be said to begin: the common words — their 
likenesses and differences. He then began to trans- 
late ; as for the grammar, he picked it up as he 
went along. Now in French there are three things 
necessary: (i) to read it easily, (2) to write it, and 
(3) to speak it. It is impossible to speak a language 
perfectly by any amount of study in an English 
school ; nor can one learn to write it without a 
vocabulary. I learned French by reading it at 
home. Greek I could have learned in the same 
manner, but not writing Greek verses. However, 
we had the customary stumbling through so many 
lines of construing every day ; we had no teaching 
in literature or history, only grammar, parsing, and 
writing of exercises. Verses we did, of course, but 
the " head" was not strong in either Greek or Latin 
verses. 

He was a good man and kindly, but his best 
qualities were concealed by an extraordinary ner- 
vousness ; he had the greatest difficulty in speaking 
in public ; if he preached, he read a ponderous dis- 
course in an even monotone ; he went into no kind 
of society; he had no friends. If a school can be 
advanced by the social qualities of its chief, then 
were we indeed in a bad way ; no one was ever in- 
vited to the house ; he spent all his evenings in his 
study, and his own amusement was in translating for 
Bohn's Library, to which he contributed three or 
four volumes. 

On one occasion he dropped into verse. He 

57 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

wrote a poem in blank verse. The subject was 
Geology. Dr. Johnson once said that the " Medi- 
terranean Sea " was an excellent subject for a poem ; 
it remains for some one to act on the suggestion. 
Geology may also be described as an excellent sub- 
ject for a poem. I wonder if there is, anywhere, a 
copy to be procured of this effusion. Why my 
master wrote it, why he published it, what golden 
visions fired his brain with thoughts of fame, I 
know not. I am certain that he must himself have 
paid for the production. Publication, in the proper 
sense, it never had, because no bookseller ever 
showed it or offered it. If aspiring poets only 
realised this point, there would be a decrease in the 
printing of new poems. In after years I remember 
a man who had published a volume of verse at his 
own expense revealing the terrible truth to me of 
his own experience. Three copies of his book had 
been sold, two to his own brothers ! One copy 
represented the whole of the Anglo-Saxon demand 
for that volume of verse. I once asked the pub- 
lisher about it. He remembered nothing at all, 
neither the poem nor the poet. My master's poem 
on Geology was written and printed, but genuine 
publication it lacked. 

Stockwell, where our school was situated, was at 
that time a very good quarter, with many wealthy 
merchants and professional men and civil servants 
living in it. The place lay between the Clapham 
Road and the Brixton Road ; it consisted of a dozen 
roads, all lined with stucco-fronted villas, large or 

5« 



SIR WALTER B E S J N T 

small, in their gardens ; the roads were planted with 
trees ; the gardens with flowering shrubs ; a leafy, 
peaceful, prosperous place. The boys looked to 
the City for their careers ; but as merchants, stock- 
brokers, underwriters and principals, not as clerks. 
A few entered the professions, but not many. Clap- 
ham Common furnished one cricket ground ; foot- 
ball was not yet played ; for the smaller boys there 
was a playground on either side of the school. 

In course of time the neighbourhood began to de- 
cay ; the wealthy merchants and the professional 
men and city solicitors moved farther out ; smaller 
houses were put up ; a commercial education was 
desired rather than a classical ; the school decayed. 
In 1870 or 1 87 1 my old friend the head-master re- 
signed. Then happened a terrible tragedy. He 
was about sixty-seven years of age ; he had saved 
little or nothing ; he fell into anxieties about the 
future ; and one day — no one knows why — no one 
can ofi'er any theory — he murdered his wife. He 
was tried and found guilty. There was no defence ; 
there was no cause discovered, not the least shadow 
of a cause ; jealousy was out of the question from 
one of his age towards a wife as old ; no one has 
ever been able to suggest any probable or possible 
cause of the crime. Meantime people were greatly 
moved about it. The man was old ; he was a clergy- 
man ; his life had been blameless ; he was always, as 
a schoolmaster, kindly and good-tempered ; he never 
fell into rages with the boys. The doctors, for their 
part, would not certify that he was insane. In the 

59 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

end they kept him in prison — but not at Broad- 
moor ; and some years later he died in his convict's 
cell. 

The mathematical master was a very different 
man. He was cheerful and jovial ; he was also a 
very good teacher of his subject. He obtained a 
close fellowship at Cambridge, and went back there, 
lived in his college for the rest of his life, and be- 
came well known for his breezy conversation and his 
cultivation of the art of dining. 

When I recall the boys who were there with me, 
two or three only stand out in my memory as re- 
markable. There were two brothers, Cubans, sent 
to England in order to learn English. They taught 
me the implacable hatred which the Cuban feels for 
the Spaniard ; they longed to get back in order to 
take part in the next rebellion, and to help in driv- 
ing the Spaniards into the sea. I wonder if they 
lived to see the deliverance of their island and its 
transference to another and a greater Power. 

There was another boy who, I now understand, 
must have been a Eurasian. His story was very 
strange. On his arrival from India he was received 
into the house of a certain very well-known member 
of Parliament, financier and politician, who for some 
years, I believe until his death, paid the boy's school 
bills. He had no other friend in England and none, 
so far as he knew, in India. He never went away 
for the holidays, and as he was not an engaging 
youth, no one ever invited him. It was a lonely, 
miserable boyhood. Now it happened that about 

60 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

the year 1855 his patron died. It was then intimated 
that there was no more money ; that the boy could 
not, therefore, as he had been always led to expect, 
be brought up to a profession, but must learn a 
trade. So after having gone through five or six 
years of the classical mill, with associates all intended 
for the liberal professions or for the better side of 
the City, the boy was taken away and apprenticed 
to a watchmaker. When his time was expired he 
called upon his old master, received from him what- 
ever facts he knew connected with his history, and 
said that he was going back to India, in order to find 
his father and his own people. The facts were few 
indeed, only that the financier had formerly certain 
near relations somewhere or other in India. So he 
disappeared. I wonder if he ever did find his father ; 
or if he still wanders about that broad country seek- 
ing and finding not. 

Another boy I remember. He started life after 
leaving school with every chance, as it appeared, of 
a prosperous career ; he succeeded to the manage- 
ment of a great business ; was thought certain to 
become a very rich man ; he was a member of a 
City company ; he would speak of ambitions con- 
nected with the Mansion House itself. After he 
left I saw no more of him ; but in course of time I 
heard rumours of incompetence ; then of dismissal; 
he had been turned out of his managing director- 
ship. His chance was gone. I lost sight of him 
altogether and forgot his existence, until many 
years later, when my name was tolerably well 

61 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

known as a novelist. 1 then received a letter in 
which this old schoolfellow, bursting into a gush of 
affection and reminiscence, told me his story as he 
wished it put, artlessly betraying a variegated career 
of failure, and ending with a request that I would 
at once send him J^20o, and would also write him a 
" long and chatty letter," as from an old and still 
affectionate friend. He wanted, you see, a testi- 
monial of respectability. What he would have 
done with the letter, had I fallen into the trap, 
would have been to show it about and to use it, 
probably, for purposes of deception. 

However, most of the boys, I believe, turned 
out well ; those who are still living are substantial, 
but they are very few. I met one the other day, to 
whom the City has been a Tom Tiddler's Ground. 
" Have you heard," he said, " that Lawrence is 
dead ? " Lawrence, one of the last of the school- 
fellows, boy or man, was always called by his 
Christian name. So Lawrence was dead, and there 
was another link snapped. 

There were many curious and pleasant places 
within reach of Stockwell. Clapham Common, on 
the south, the first of the Surrey heaths. It was 
surrounded by stately mansions, sacred to the 
memory of Wilberforce, Thornton, and Macaulay, 
standing amidst broad lawns with splendid cedars. 
The common itself was left absolutely untouched ; 
winter water-ways made little ravines ; there were 
ponds, there were no roads, there was gorse 
and fern. It was our playground. Beyond lay 

62 



SIR JVALTER BESANT 

Wandsworth Common, another wild heath with 
a lake called the Black Sea, wherein, it was 
rumoured, gigantic pike attacked and bit great 
holes in the boy who ventured to swim across. 

On the west one could easily reach the Battersea 
Fields. As I recollect this place, it was most dreary 
and miserable ; a broad flat, lower than the river, 
and protected by an embankment. On the bank 
stood the once famous Red House tavern, now long 
forgotten, and beside it the pigeon-shooting ground. 
This sport went on continually. If a pigeon es- 
caped he was potted by men who carried guns and 
lay waiting for him outside the grounds. Battersea 
Church was on the wall of the Fields, the transfor- 
mation of a great part of which into Battersea Park 
took place between 1851 and 1858. 

In summer our favourite rambles were farther 
afield, in the direction of Champion Hill, Heme 
Hill, Dulwich, and even Penge. No one visiting 
these places at the present day can understand their 
loveliness before they were built over. Dulwich, 
with its ancient college and its inn, its greenery and 
its orchards, was surely the sweetest village in the 
world. I always looked about in case I might come 
upon Mr. Pickwick, who was then a resident, but I 
was never privileged to see him. The hanging woods 
of Penge in autumn were lovely beyond the power 
of words. Its Common on the Hill had been en- 
closed long before — in 1 824 — Howe laments the 
fact in that year ; but in the fifties Penge, Norwood 
and Sydenham formed a group of suburbs still rural, 

^3 



AUTOBIOGRAPHT OF 

still covered with woods and gardens, and as beauti- 
ful as any country village. As yet there were neither 
omnibuses nor railway. The people who went into 
the City drove in their own carriages or rode 
their own horses. Any morning along the Clapham 
Road there were still many who rode into town. 

We were not great at games at the school. There 
was a cricket club, but my short sight disqualified 
me from any game of ball ; in the winter there was 
hockey on Clapham Common. I think that foot- 
ball had not yet come in ; in fact athletics, in such 
schools as this was, hardly existed. On the other 
hand we took long walks ; we walked to Richmond, 
and rode ponies in the Park ; we walked to Putney, 
and took boats on the River; we jumped the Effra, 
in the Dulwich Fields ; we had a gymnastic bar and 
did things of strength ; sometimes we wrestled ; 
sometimes we fought. On the whole it was a 
healthy kind of life, with plenty of outdoor 
exercise. 

For my own part, I had a form of recreation all 
my own, of which I said nothing, because the other 
boys would not understand it. I had friends at 
Camberwell and Brixton, who asked me two or 
three times a term to dinner on a half-holiday. 
On such occasions I used to get away at two and 
walk all the way into the City of London, which 
was to me then, as it has been ever since, a place of 
mystery, full of things to be discovered. Nothing 
could be more delightful than to wander about, not 
knowing where, so long as one was in the City. 

64 



SIR IV A LT E R B ES A N T 

Sometimes I would light upon St. Paul's, and hear 
the service; sometimes, but rarely, I would find a 
City church open ; sometimes I would climb the 
Monument in order to look down upon the laby- 
rinth of streets. Sometimes I found myself in 
streets that I knew : Paternoster Row — that was 
the place of books, and I regarded the narrow lane 
with awe and longing ; or in Little Britain — I 
knew that street from Washington Irving ; or in 
Newgate Street, which was then one long double 
row of butchers' shops ; or by the old bastion of 
London Wall ; or in Cloth Fair, then a lovely 
monument of picturesque gables, overhanging win- 
dows and dirt of Tudor antiquity. Once I found 
myself in Goswell Street, and looked about for Mrs. 
Bardell, just as beside the Monument I looked 
about for the residence of Mrs. Todgers, or the 
square in which Tim Linkinwater lived. If I 
could only remember the City as it was ! But 
nothing is more difficult to recall than the aspect 
of a street or a house before destruction and 
rebuilding. 

It was in the summer of 1854 that I became 
captain of the school and left it with a barrowful of 
prizes. It was a small triumph, I daresay, to be 
captain of a little suburban school with a hundred 
boys, but it pleased everybody, including myself. 
As for what I knew — well, I believe I had less real 
knowledge of Latin and Greek than at twelve, but 
I suppose I knew more grammar. My mathe- 
matical knowledge was much better ; we had gone 
5 * 65 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

through most of the subjects then known as the 
"three day" subjects, because they covered the 
ground of the first three days of the Cambridge 
Mathematical Tripos ; and what was more, I knew 
them very fairly, through the accident of being 
taught mathematics more intelligently and with more 
heart than classics. 1 was taken out of my proper 
line, which was certainly the latter, and made to go 
in for mathematics, which I could follow and learn 
and master, but in which I had no original power 
whatever. In other things, I could read French 
fairly well, from private reading ; and I could read 
German almost as well. As for science, I knew 
nothing whatever about it. We only went through 
a little book of question and answer on political 
economy ; we learned geography by making maps ; 
if we learned history at all, I have forgotten in what 
way. We wrote an essay every week, which we had 
to divide and arrange in a certain fixed order — such 
as the Preface; the Reasoning; the Simile; the 
Quotation; the Illustration; the Argument; and the 
Conclusion. It was by this simple rule of thumb 
that the first lessons in arrangement • and in con- 
struction were then taught, but I doubt if there could 
have been devised any better way of directing the 
mind unconsciously to obtain a sense of proportion 
and lucidity of arrangement. To this day, when I 
read an essay constructed loosely and confusedly, I 
say, " My friend, you were never taught to divide 
your argument into those sections which make it more 

forcible and more attractive." 

66 



SIR IVALTER BESANT 



Chapter IV 

KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON 

KING'S COLLEGE, London, where I was 
entered in October, 1854, was then even 
more than now considered as a bulwark of 
orthodoxy and the EstabHshed Church. To begin 
with, every student on admission was required to 
sign the Thirty-nine Articles. I believe the regula- 
tion was defended on the ground that, although a 
lad of seventeen was hardly likely to be a stalwart 
defender of these Articles, he acknowledged by 
signing them the principles of authority ; he bowed 
before the teaching of his spiritual pastors, and ac- 
cepted what he could neither prove nor disprove. 
Considering all that we have to accept on trust in 
the scientific world, perhaps it is not too much to 
invite this confidence on the part of a boy. Of 
course, all the Professors were Church of England 
men ; there was a very terrible Council consisting 
of so many Grand Inquisitors ; the least suspicion 
of heterodoxy was visited by deprivation. They 
were as implacable as the Holy Office. No reputa- 
tion, no abilities, no services, no distinction could 
save the heretic. The orthodoxy of the college 
gave, however, no farther trouble to students than 
a weekly lecture by the Principal on these Articles 

67 



A UTO B I O G RA P H T OF 

which they had been made to accept on trust. Dur- 
ing my year at the college we got through four, I 
remember — the first four. The remaining thirty- 
five 1 have continued to accept on trust. 

I cannot say that the students were carefully 
looked after, or that the teaching could be called 
good. Our Professor of Classics, Dr. Browne, was 
a kindly and genial scholar. We translated a good 
deal. We wrestled with him all the time about 
learning Virgil by heart. He also gave us a course 
of Logic and another of Rhetoric, both of which, 
although very short and elementary, proved truly 
useful to one, at least, of his students. The Pro- 
fessor of Mathematics had been, I daresay, a good 
teacher in earlier years; when I joined he was old 
and had quite lost all interest in his work. Indeed, 
he no longer pretended any, but sat at his desk 
while the men worked at their own sweet will, 
bringing him from time to time difficulties and 
questions which he solved for them mechanically. 
There were French classes and German classes. 
There was a Greek Testament class, which I at- 
tended ; it was compulsory. 

Our best Professor was a man of considerable 
mark as an antiquary and archaeologist — the late 
J. S. Brewer. He was, if I remember right. Pro- 
fessor both of English History and of Literature, 
the two going together in those dark days. He 
was a stimulating lecturer, full of forcible eloquence 
and of enthusiasm for his subject. He could also on 
occasion show a rough side of tongue and temper. 

68 



SIR TV A LT E R B E S A N T 

So far as I can remember, there was very little in 
the way of social life among the students of my 
time. A Debating Society existed — I was a mem- 
ber, but never ventured to speak. I remember, 
however, the outrageous nonsense that was talked 
by the ingenuous youth — nonsense that set me 
against Debating Societies for life. I forget whether 
there were cricket and boat clubs, but I think not. 
There were a few residents, and I daresay they made 
a society of their own. Of the students who were 
there in my time one or two emerged afterwards from 
the ruck. Wace, afterwards Principal of King's, 
was one ; a laborious scholar, who made the best 
use of his talents. I believe that he was for many 
years a leader writer for the 'Times. Ainger, at 
this moment Canon of Bristol and Master of the 
Temple, a man of accomplishments and readiness, 
was another. Years afterwards I was present at 
the annual prize-giving. My former Professor, 
Archdeacon Browne, who had long before retired 
from his post, addressed the meeting. He said that 
it had afforded him peculiar gratification to observe 
the distinctions achieved by former students of 
King's. Among those who had thus risen to great- 
ness, he said, were Bishops, Deans, Archdeacons, 
and Beneficed Clergy. No distinctions outside the 
Church were worth considering in a college so 
ecclesiastical, but the worthy Archdeacon repre- 
sented the King's College of its founders. 

I made a few friends in the college, some half 
dozen or so, who went on to Cambridge at the same 

69 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

time as myself. When lectures were over I used 
generally to walk away by myself into the City. 
There was no reason for getting into the City ; I 
knew nothing about its history ; but it fascinated 
me, as it does to this day. Apart from all its his- 
torical associations, the City has still a strange and 
inexplicable charm for me. I like now, as I liked 
then, to wander about among its winding lanes and 
narrow streets ; to stand before those old, neglected 
City churchyards ; to look into the old inn yards, 
of which there remain but one or two. If I could 
only by some effort of the memory recall those 
streets and houses, which I suppose I saw while 
they were still standing, but have forgotten ! I 
knew the City before they provided it with the 
new broad thoroughfares ; before they pulled down 
so many of the City churches. I ought to remem- 
ber the double quadrangle of Doctors' Commons 
— that quaint old college in the heart of the City 
Gerard's Hall ; St. Michael's subterranean Church 
the buildings on the site of the Hanseatic Aula 
St. Paul's School ; the Merchant Taylors' School 
Whittington's Aims-House ; and I know not what 
beside. Alas! I have long since forgotten them. 
In those days, however, I walked about among 
these ancient monuments. When I was tired and 
hungry I would look for a chop-house, dine, and 
then walk slowly home to my lodgings, taking a 
cup of coffee at a coffee-house on the way. My 
lodgings were in a place called Featherstone Build- 
ings, Holborn. I shared rooms with a brother, 

70 



SIR IVJLTER BESJNT 

who was in the City. He had a good many friends 
in London, and was out nearly every evening. I 
had few, and remained left to my own devices ; we 
had little in common, and went each his own way ; 
which is an excellent rule for brothers, and main- 
tains fraternal affection. 

I ought to have stayed at home in the evening 
and worked. Now Featherstone Buildings is a 
very quiet place ; there is no thoroughfare ; all the 
houses were then — and I daresay are still — let out 
in lodgings ; our one sitting-room, which was also 
my study, was the second floor front. In the even- 
ing the place was absolutely silent ; the silence 
sometimes helped me in my work ; sometimes it got 
on my nerves and became intolerable. I would 
then go out and wander about the streets for the 
sake of the animation, the crowds, and the lights ; 
or I would go half-price — a shilling — to the pit 
of a theatre ; or I would, also for a shilling, drop 
into a casino and sit in a corner and look on at the 
dancing. I was shy ; I looked much younger than 
my age ; I spoke to no one, and no one spoke to 
me. The thing was risky, but I came to no harm ; 
nor did 1 ever think much about the character of 
the people who frequented the places. One of 
them was in Dean Street, Soho. It is now a school; 
it was then " Caldwell's " — a dancing place fre- 
quented by shop-girls, dressmakers, and young 
fellows. I do not know what the reputation of the 
place was ; no doubt it was pretty bad ; but, so far 
as I remember, it was a quiet and well-conducted 

71 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

place. To this day I cannot think of those lonely 
evenings in my London lodging without a touch of 
the old terror. I see myself sitting at a table, books 
spread out before me. I get to work. Presently I 
sit up and look round. The silence is too much 
for me. I take my hat and I go out. There are 
thousands of young fellows to-day who find, as I 
found every evening, the silence and loneliness 
intolerable. If I were a rich man I would build 
colleges for these young fellows, where they could 
live together, and so keep out of mischief. As for 
my friends, they were too far off to be of much use 
to me ; they lived for the most part at Clapham 
and Camberwell, four miles away. 

I have mentioned the brother who became Senior 
Wrangler. Two or three years afterwards he had 
a long and serious illness. At the same time my 
youngest sister — a child of six or so — was threat- 
ened with St. Vitus's Dance. As change of air was 
wanted for both, lodgings were taken at Freshwater 
Bay, in the Isle of Wight. I went with the two 
patients, and it was a delightful holiday. The sick 
people were convalescent. My brother talked to 
me all day long about Cambridge, and what he 
thought I ought to do. My imagination was 
fired. It seemed to me — it seems so still — 
the most splendid thing in the world for a young 
fellow to go to the university ; there to con- 
tend with young giants ; and, if he can, to keep 
his field and be victorious. My own victories 
proved humble, but I formed and cherished am- 

72 



SIR JVALTER BESANT 

bitions which were dehghtful, and at le^st I had 
the training. 

I remember Freshwater for another reason. It 
was the beginning of the Crimean War, and Tenny- 
son's Maud had just come out. I read the poem on 
the beach in that lovely bay ; I saw the poet himself 
stalking among the hills — the Queen's Poet, the 
country people called him. I had seen the splendid 
fleets of which he spoke go forth to war. Heaven ! 
How the lines at the end oi Maud rang in my brain I 
The fleets went out to war, but they saw little ; the 
war was carried on by the armies. In those days 
the poor lads had to face the awful Russian winter 
with brown paper boots, shoddy great-coats, and 
green cofl^ee berries. I remember the people of 
Portsmouth going about with white faces, the men 
swearing and cursing, the women weeping. I re- 
member seeing the wounded borne on stretchers up 
the street to the new hospital under the walls. And I 
remember — saddest sight of all — seeing the remains 
of a regiment, that had been cut to pieces, marching 
from the Dockyard gates to the barracks — the band 
was reduced to five or six ; the regiment was a skel- 
eton. The men were ragged, and as they passed 
along they were followed by the weeping and wailing 
of the women. The poor degraded sailors' and 
soldiers' women had so much left of womanhood as 
to weep for the brave men who lay in the cemetery^ 
far away on the Crimean shores. I visited Fresh- 
water again after forty years. Alas ! the place is 
ruined. They have built a promenade round the 

73 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

little bay ; there are rows of houses and villas and 
terraces. Tennyson's Freshwater is gone ; no one 
would recognise, in the cockney watering-place, the 
lonely and secluded spot which furnished inspiration 
for Tennyson's most beautiful poem. 

My three short terms at King's College, London, 
came to an end — not altogether ingloriously. I 
kept up the honour of my little school by taking 
the mathematical scholarship ; I carried off prizes 
in classics, mathematics, and divinity. But nobody 
cared about any of the students ; during the whole 
time I was there I never remember a single word of 
personal interest or of encouragement. The men 
went to lectures ; if they failed to attend, a letter was 
sent to their people at home; of individual interest 
or encouragement there was absolutely none. I be- 
lieve it was much the same thing at most ot the 
colleges of Oxford and Cambridge at this time. The 
men were left severely alone ; so that, after all. 
King's was not behind its betters. 

One little distinction made me at the time very 
proud. It was in my first term. When the news 
came home of the Battle of the Alma, Trench, then 
Archbishop of Dublin, and formerly one of the 
professors of King's, sent a poem to the 'Times upon 
the victory. Professor Browne gave it to his class 
for Latin elegiacs. My copy, I was rejoiced to hear, 
was selected to be sent to the Archbishop. He 
wrote a very cordial letter in reply, with a kindly 
message to me. I wish I had kept the letter with 
that message. 

74 



SIR fFJLTER BESANT 

One of my prizes, I have said, was for divinity. 
It was still my purpose to enter into holy orders. 
That is to say, I used to consider this my purpose. 
But as to any deliberate preparation for the life, or 
attempt to realise what it meant ; or what was meant 
by the ecclesiastical mind ; or to understand the 
necessity for acquiring the power of speaking, or of 
any qualification even distantly belonging to the 
clerical profession — I paid no attention and gave 
no thought to such things. Had I done so ; had I 
realised the terrible weight of the fetters with which 
the average clergyman of the time went about laden 
— the chain of literal inspiration and verbal ac- 
curacy, the blind opposition to science, the dreary 
Evangelisations of the religious literature, the 
wrangles over points long since consigned to the 
limbo of old controversies, the intolerant spirit, 
the artificial life, the affected piety — I should have 
given up the thought of taking holy orders long 
before the decision was forced upon me. 

During this period I began to write — or to make 
the first serious attempt at writing. That is to say, 
I had always been writing ; as a boy, trying the 
most impossible things, even comedies. Now, how- 
ever, I began to form definite ambitions. I would 
be a poet. I believe that this dream, which happens 
to thousands of lads of every degree, may be the 
most useful illusion possible. For it necessitates 
the writing of verse, and there is no kind of exercise 
more valuable, if one is destined to write prose, than 
the writing of verse, even though the result is by no 

75 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

means a success. My dream made me perfectly and 
entirely happy ; my verses I thought splendid. Long 
years afterwards, when this youthful dream had been 
well-nigh forgotten, I came across a bundle of papers 
tied up carefully. They were my poems. Each was 
dated carefully, after the fashion of the bards of 
fame. I turned them over. Heavens ! How could 
any one, even in the present day, imagine or persuade 
himself that this stuff was poetry ! I found crude 
and commonplace thoughts, echoes of Tennyson 
and Wordsworth — everything except what I had 
imagined when I wrote this skimble-skamble stuff. 
Suddenly I understood. The years rolled back. I 
saw myself with glowing cheek, with beating pulse, 
with humid eye, reading over what I had just written. 
And I saw that the young man read on the page 
before him, not the lame lines and the forced 
rhymes, but the thoughts in his own mind — the 
splendid thoughts, which were borrowed here and 
lifted there unconsciously, and which were lying in 
his brain waiting to be worked up and absorbed, 
and to form part of himself. And so this bundle 
of bad verses was in itself a part of education. 

I once wrote a story — a very simple story it 
was — of three boys and a girl. One of my boys 
was a youth with literary ambitions. In my pre- 
sentment of that youth I seem to see some kind of 
portrait, or sketch after the life, of myself. The 
book was called All in a Garden Fair^ from which I 
have already quoted. Here is a passage in which 
the boy's early efforts are described: — 

76 



SIR fVALTER BESANT 

" ' Such a boy as Allen is, before all things, fond of 
books. This means two things — first, that he is curious 
about the world, eager to learn, and, secondly, that he is 
open to the influences of form and style. Words and 
phrases move him in the silent page as the common man 
is moved by the orator. He has been seized by the charm 
of language. You understand me not, my daughter ; but 
listen still. When a boy has once learned to love words, 
when he feels how a thing said one way is delightful, and 
said another way is intolerable, that boy may become a 
mere rhetorician, pedant, and precisian ; or an orator, one 
of those who move the world j or a poet, one of those 
born to be loved.' 

" ' And Allen, you think, will be — what ? A rhetori- 
cian, or an orator, or a poet ? ' 

" ' It may be the first, but I think he will not be. For 
I also observe in the boy the intuitions, the fire, the 
impatience, and the emotion, which belong to the orator 
who speaks because he must, and to the poet who writes 
because he cannot help it. I think — nay, I am sure — 
that a lad with these sympathies cannot be a mere rhet- 
orician or a maker of phrases.' 

"Claire listened, trying still to connect this theory with 
the conspiracy, but she failed. 

" * He reads, because it is his time for reading every- 
thing. He has no choice. It is his nature to read. He 
was born to read. He reads by instinct. He reads poetry, 
and his brain is filled with magnificent colours and splendid 
women ; he reads romances, and he dreams of knights and 
stately dames; he reads history, and his heart burns within 
him; he reads biography, and he worships great heroes; 
he reads tragedy, and he straightway stalks about the Forest 
another Talma ; he reads idyls, and the meadows become 

77 



AUTOBIOGRAPHT OF 

peopled to him with the shepherds and shepherdesses — he 
lives two Hves : one of these is dull and mean ; to think of 
it, while he is living the other, makes him angry and 
ashamed, for in the other he lives in an enchanted world, 
where he is a magician and can conjure spirits.' " 

I have not succeeded in becoming a poet ; I still 
think, however, that there is nothing in the world 
so entirely desirable as a poetic life — if uninter- 
rupted, without anxieties for the daily bread, sus- 
tained by noble thought, and encouraged by great 
success. Of all the men of our century I would 
rather have been Tennyson than any other man 
whatever. 

However, I had my dream, and it was very 
delightful. And when I went up to Cambridge, 
exchanging my lonely lodgings in Holborn for a 
fuller and healthier social life, I ceased to think of 
poetry, and for three years almost ceased to think 
of writing at all. Once, I remember, I attempted 
a poem for the Chancellor's Prize. When I had 
half finished it, one of our men brought me a MS. 
It was his poem. No one was to be allowed to 
send in his composition in his own handwriting. 
Would I write it out for him? I looked at it with 
a sinking heart. It was a great deal better than 
mine. It was so unusually good that it failed to 
get the prize. Now mine was of a good honest 
mediocrity, so mediocre that I have often lamented 
the incident which prevented my sending it in. 



78 



SIR IV ALTER BESANT 



Chapter V 

CHRIST'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 

I WAS entered at Christ's, one of the so called 
" small " colleges. It was then larger than 
most of the Oxford colleges, and stood about 
fifth on the list at Cambridge in point of numbers. 
All the colleges, however, in 1855 were much 
smaller than they are in 1900. Thus, our under- 
graduates were under a hundred in number ; there 
are now at the same college two hundred. 

I am strongly of opinion that a very large college, 
such as Trinity, Cambridge, does not offer any- 
thing like the social and educational advantages of 
a small college. Trinity, for instance, has about 
seven hundred undergraduates ; Christ's, about two 
hundred. Now the chief advantage of a university 
course is the intercourse of the students among each 
other ; the meeting of young men from all parts of 
the country and the Empire; the widening of views 
by free discussion. When there are only some 
fifty or sixty men of each year, they are drawn to- 
gether by studies, by sports, by pursuits of all 
kinds ; every man may make his mark upon his 
year ; every man may get all that there is to be got 
by the society of other men of his own time. There 
are "sets," of course, — a reading set ; an athletic 

79 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

set ; a musical set ; a loafing set ; a fast set. At 
Trinity, however, a man may be simply swamped. 
As it is, there is a tendency for the Eton men to 
keep together and make a set of their own ; if a 
man does not belong to any of the great public 
schools, he will find it difficult to get into certain 
sets which may be intellectually the best ; if he does 
not distinguish himself in any branch of learning, 
if he does not do well in athletics, if he shows no 
marked ability in any direction, it is quite possible 
for him to pass through Trinity as much neglected 
and alone as a solitary lodger in London. In a 
smaller college the sets overlap : it is realised that 
one may be a reading man and also an athlete. A 
freshman of ability is at once received into the best 
reading set ; he gains the inestimable advantage for 
a young fellow of nineteen of knowing, and being 
influenced by, the third-year man who is about to 
distinguish himself in the Tripos, or even the 
Bachelor who has already distinguished himself In 
the college of a hundred and fifty to two hundred 
men there is room for the development of character; 
no one need be lost in the crowd ; the dullest of 
dull men may in some way or other make his mark 
and impress upon his contemporaries a sense of his 
individuality. 

At other times and in other places I have ad- 
vanced the theory that the eighteenth century did 
not really come to an end with December 31st, 
1800, but that it lingered on until well into the 
nineteenth century, even to the beginning of Queen 

80 



SIR WALTER B ES A N T 

Victoria's eventful reign. In no place did it linger 
so long as at Cambridge. When I went up, the 
fellowships and the scholarships had been thrown 
open, but only recently, so that the Society was 
mainly composed of those who held close fellow- 
ships. These men, whose attainments had never 
been more than respectable, generally marked by 
a place somewhere among the wranglers, had for 
the most part come up from some small country 
town ; they had a very faint tincture of culture ; 
they were quite ignorant of modern literature ; 
they knew absolutely nothing of art. As regards 
science, their contempt was as colossal as their 
ignorance. They vegetated at Cambridge ; their 
lectures were elementary and contemptible ; they 
lectured to freshmen on Euclid, algebra or Greek 
Testament — the last for choice, because to fit them 
for the task they only had to read Bengel's Gnomon 
and other works of the kind, now perhaps — I don't 
know — forgotten ; they divided the posts and 
offices of the college among themselves ; they 
solemnly sat in the Combination Room for two 
hours every day over their port ; they sometimes 
played whist with each other ; they hardly ever 
went outside the college except for an afternoon 
walk ; and they waited patiently for a fat college 
living to fall in. When a vacancy happened, the 
next on the list took the place, went down, and was 
no more heard of. 

The dulness, the incapacity, the stupidity of the 
dons brought the small colleges into a certain con- 
6 8i 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

tempt. The decay of Cambridge as a place of learn- 
ing threatened to overwhelm the university. I be- 
lieve that for the first half of the century the 
scholarship and science of Cambridge were a laughing- 
stock on the Continent. Naturally, the dulness of 
the fellows was in some sort reflected among the 
undergraduates. There were certain colleges which 
seemed never to show any intellectual life at all. I 
need not mention names, because everything is now 
changed. The close fellowship has now vanished ; 
the close scholarship has been largely abolished ; 
the entrance scholarships attract good men to the 
small as well as the large colleges ; the fellows and 
lecturers of the former do not yield in intellectual 
attainments to those of the latter. 

If the dons were different in the first half of the 
last century, how different were the undergraduates ! 
In the fifties, the now universal habit of travel was 
unknown; the lads who came up to Cambridge had 
seen no other place than the small country town or 
country village from which they came. They were 
the sons of country gentlemen, but infinitely more 
rustic than their grandsons of the present day ; they 
were the sons of the country clergy, well and gently 
bred, many of them, but profoundly ignorant of the 
world ; they were the sons of manufacturers ; they 
were the sons of professional men ; they came from 
the country grammar school, which had not yet been 
converted into a public school after the one pattern 
now enforced; they had gone through the classical 
mill; they had learned a little mathematics; they 

82 



SIR fFJLTER BESANT 

played cricket with zeal ; they were wholly ignorant 
of the world, of society, of literature, of everything. 
They mostly intended to take holy orders, and some 
of them had family livings waiting for them. It is 
difficult, in these days, to understand the depth and 
the extent and the intensity of the ignorance of 
these lads. 

It happened, by great good luck for Christ's, that 
there had arisen a man in the college who had eyes 
to see and a head to understand. The man's name 
was Gunson ; he was a Cumberland man, and 
prouder of being a " statesman " than of being 
tutor of his college. However, this man resolved 
upon converting his charge into a living and active 
seat of learning. First, he made his own lectures 
— classical lectures — worth attending; then, as 
there was no mathematician in the college, he got 
one of the ablest of the younger mathematicians in 
the university, Wolstenholme of St. John's, elected 
to a fellowship and lectureship at Christ's. Then 
he began to make things uncomfortable for the men 
who could read to good purpose and were idle. 
For the first time in the annals of the college there 
was seen a tutor who actually concerned himself 
about the men individually ; who stormed and bul- 
lied the indolent and encouraged those who worked. 
The result was that, during the whole time that 
Gunson was tutor of Christ's, that is to say, for a 
quarter of a century, the college turned out a suc- 
cession of men with whom no other college except 
Trinity could compare. 

83 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

Let me enumerate some of the men who were 
members of the college during that quarter of a 
century when Gunson was tutor. It will be seen 
that some of them — the seniors — cannot be claimed 
as the results of Gunson's activity ; but the great 
majority were undoubtedly his children. 

To put the Church first, there were Frederick 
Gell, Bishop of Madras from 1861 to 1899; Sheep- 
shanks, Bishop of Norwich ; Sweatman, Bishop of 
Toronto ; Henry Cheetham, Bishop of Sierra Leone ; 
and Samuel Cheetham, Archdeacon of Rochester, 
and editor, with the late Sir William Smith, of 
the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. — Among 
scholars, men of science, and men of other distinc- 
tion, there were Sir John Robert Seeley, Professor 
of Modern History at Cambridge, author of the 
Expansion of England, and Ecce Homo ; Charles Stuart 
Calverley, poet and scholar ; Walter Skeat, Profes- 
sor of Anglo-Saxon at Cambridge ; John Peile, 
afterwards Master of Christ's College ; J. W. Hales, 
Professor of English Literature at King's College, 
London ; James Smith Reid, Professor of Ancient 
History ; Walter Wren, the well-known coach ; 
the Rev. C. Middleton-Wake, a writer on artistic 
topics ; Dr. Robert Liveing, dermatologist ; Sir 
Henry B. Buckley, Judge of the High Court ; Sir 
Walter Joseph Sendall, G.C.M.G., Governor in turn 
of the Windward Islands, Barbados, Cyprus, and 
British Guiana; Sir John Jardine, K.C.I.E., Judge 
of the High Court of Bombay, and author of Notes 
on Buddhist Law; Richard Ebden, C.M.G., Chief 

84 



SIR JVALTER BESANT 

Clerk at the Colonial Office ; Sir Winfield Bonser, 
Chief Justice of Ceylon ; S. H. Vynes, Professor 
of Botany at Oxford ; H. Marshall Ward, Professor 
of Botany at Cambridge ; George Henslow, also a 
famous botanist ; A. E. Shipley, Lecturer on Mor- 
phology at Cambridge ; Dr. Wallis Budge, the great 
Cuneiform scholar and keeper of the Egyptian and 
Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum ; and 
many others. I do not think that any other college 
except Trinity can show so goodly a list. To these 
may be added those who came to the college after 
taking their degree — Wolstenholme, third wrangler 
in 1850, my eldest brother's year, and late Profes- 
sor of Mathematics at Cooper's Hill Engineering 
College ; John Fletcher Moulton, K.C., Senior 
Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman ; Francis 
Darwin, author of Practical Physiology of Plants^ and 
biographer of his distinguished father ; and Robert- 
son Smith, the man of colossal learning. Lord 
Almoner's Professor of Arabic at Cambridge, and 
joint editor of the Encycloposdia Britannica. 

The greater number of these names belong to the 
late fifties and the early sixties. For my own part, 
I had the great good fortune of entering when 
Calverley had just taken his degree, when Seeley 
was a third-year man ; Skeat, Hales, Sendall, Peile 
belonged either to my own year or to that above or 
below. Seeley, as an undergraduate, was what he 
remained in after life, a leader and a teacher of 
men ; he was always somewhat grave, even austere ; 
always a student ; always serious in his discourse 

85 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

and in his thoughts. To talk daily with him was 
an education. He was most helpful to younger men 
in whom he took an interest ; for my own part, I 
have to thank him for opening up a new world to 
me. My opportunities of conversation with scholars 
had been few. At school there had been none ; my 
head-master never talked to the boys ; at King's 
College there had been none, the professors and 
lecturers paid no attention to the students. I had 
read voraciously, but not always wisely. Seeley in- 
troduced me to Carlyle, Maurice and Coleridge. 
Without intending it, he made it impossible for me 
to carry out my original purpose of taking holy 
orders. That is to say, the teaching of Maurice, 
acting on a mind very little attracted by the preva- 
lent orthodoxy, which was still Calvinist and Evan- 
gelical, caused a gradual revolt, which was quite 
unconscious until the time came when I was forced 
to contemplate the situation seriously. This, how- 
ever, came afterwards. 

Among these men — I mean of my own time — 
incomparably the most brilliant, the finest scholar, 
the most remarkable man from every point of 
view, was Calverley. He was the hero of a hundred 
tales ; all the audacious things, all the witty things, 
all the clever things, were fathered upon him. It 
is forty years since his time, and no doubt the same 
audacities, repartees, and things of unexpectedness 
which never die have been fathered upon others, his 
successors in brilliant talk and scholarship. But 
consider, to a lad like myself, the delight of knowing 

86 



SIR TVALTER BESANT 

a man who was not only the finest scholar of his 
year — writing Latin verses which even to eyes like 
mine were charming — but a man who could play 
and sing with a grace and sweetness quite divine, as 
it seemed to me ; who could make parodies the most 
ridiculous and burlesques the most absurd; who 
kept a kind of open house for his intimates, with 
abundance of port and claret — he was the only man 
in college who kept claret; whose English verses 
were as delightful as his Latin ; who was always 
sympathetic, always helpful, always considerate. In 
my first year I saw very little of him. That was 
to be expected, considering that he was already a 
bachelor. But a fortunate accident caused him to 
become then and thenceforward one of my best and 
kindest friends. The occasion was this. The college 
offered, every year, a gold medal for an English 
Essay ; the prize was provided by Bishop Porteous, 
one of the Christ's worthies. I sent in an essay, 
and to my surprise, I obtained the prize. More 
than this, I was bracketed with Calverley. For a 
freshman of nineteen to be bracketed equal in an 
English essay with the most brilliant scholar of his 
time was too much to be expected. I have never 
since experienced half the joy at any success which 
I felt on that occasion. Needless to say that I 
have kept the medal ever since in remembrance of 
that bracket. 

My university career was creditable but not 
greatly distinguished. I read for double honours, 
but only went out in the Mathematical Tripos. 

87 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

My classical reading, however, was not wasted, be- 
cause you cannot well waste time in reading Latin 
and Greek. I was a scholar, an exhibitioner and a 
prizeman of my college ; I obtained a place toler- 
ably high among the wranglers of my yean My 
friends groaned, and said I ought to have done 
much better. Perhaps, but then I had done very 
much better than they imagined in the broadening 
of my views, and in general knowledge and culture. 
I completed my course at Christ's, as I had begun 
it, by taking a special prize — this time the Bache- 
lor's Theological Prize. 

The undergraduate's life in the fifties differed in 
many respects from that of his successor in the nine- 
ties. To begin with, there was a far more generous 
consumption of beer. Many reading men began 
the day with beer after breakfast ; every Sunday 
morning breakfast was concluded with beer ; there 
was more beer for lunch ; nothing but beer was 
taken with dinner ; and there was beer with the 
evening pipe. Every college had its own brewer. 
Four kinds of beer were brewed : the " Audit " ale, 
old and strong, the " Strong " ale, the " Bitter," 
and the " Small " beer, or " Swipes ; " the common 
dinner drink was " Bitter and Swipes." We dined 
at four — a most ungodly hour, maintained in the 
belief that it would leave a long evening for work; 
it left a long evening, it is true, but not much of it 
was spent in work. Every day after hall the men 
divided themselves into little parties of four or six, 
and took wine in each other's rooms; with the 

88 



SIR JVALTER BESJNT 

reading men there was not much taken, one bottle 
of port generally sufficing for the whole of the little 
company. Chapel broke up the party at six. Tea 
was generally taken at seven or thereabouts, when 
work was supposed to be resumed and carried on 
as long as each man chose ; mostly at about ten 
books were laid aside, pipes were produced, and 
with a quart of bitter for the two or three gathered 
together, the day was ended before midnight. 

Lectures went on from nine to eleven ; there was 
the private coach every other day from eleven to 
one or two ; a hasty lunch of bread and cheese and 
beer, or of bread and butter with a glass of sherry, 
followed ; then the river, or racquets, or fives, or 
a walk till four. This was our life. My own form 
of exercise was either boating or fives. I went 
down to the river almost every afternoon, rowing 
bow in our first boat, which was not very high — 
ninth, I think. In the long vacation, when the 
narrow river was clearer, I went sculling a good 
deal. I also played fives, the only game of ball 
which I could play, because it was the only game in 
which I could see the ball. 

A few men belonged to the Union, but not many. 
There was no amalgamated club subscription ; the 
cricket club and the boating club were the only 
two which asked for subscriptions. There were no 
athletics to speak of; the university sports were 
held on Fenner's Ground, but not many men took 
part in them, or even went to look on. There was 
no football club for the college ; there were no 

89 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

musical societies ; there was no choir in the Chapel ; 
there were no associations among the undergradu- 
ates at all except two whist clubs. The " muckle " 
pewter belonging to one of these clubs still adorns 
my study. In some colleges they had supper clubs, 
which meant spending a great deal more than the 
men could afford, and drinking a great deal more 
than was good for them. I do not think that any 
supper club existed at Christ's in my time. 

On Sunday after Chapel, i.e. about half-past ten, 
there was always a breakfast of some half-dozen 
men ; the breakfast consisted of a solid cold pie 
and the usual " trimmings," with beer afterwards. 
After breakfast we went for a long walk. Cam- 
bridge is surrounded by villages with venerable 
churches. They are separated, it is true, by three 
or four miles of flat and treeless country, but, in 
the course of a morning between eleven and four, 
one could cover a good stretch of ground. In 
those days the rustics still wore embroidered smocks 
on Sunday and the women wore scarlet flannel 
shawls. Those of the undergraduates who were 
religiously disposed indulged in a sort of gluttonous 
banquet of services. One man, I remember, would 
take a Sunday school at eight a.m., go to chapel at 
half-past nine ; to a morning service at eleven ; to 
the university sermon at two ; to King's College 
Chapel at three ; to the college chapel at six ; to 
evening service in some church of the town at 
seven, and end with a prayer meeting and hymn 
singing in somebody's rooms. But such men were 

90 



SIR PFJLTER BESANT 

rare. For my own part, though still proposing to 
take orders, I was so little moved by the responsi- 
bilities before me that though it was necessary, in 
order to obtain the proper college testimonials, to 
attend three celebrations of Holy Communion in 
the three years of residence, 1 forgot this require- 
ment, and, on discovering the omission, attended 
all three in the last two terms. This was thought 
somewhat scandalous, and I nearly lost my college 
certificate in consequence. 

As for the literary tastes of my times, Tennyson, 
Kingsley and Carlyle were in everybody's hands, 
with Dickens of course as the first favourite. It is 
wonderful that no one seems to have heard of 
Robert Browning, but I am quite certain that I read 
nothing of Browning until after going down. Yet 
we knew, and read, Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge, 
Byron, Scott — in a word, all the poets. Another 
omission is Thackeray. I cannot remember when 
I first read Vanity Fair and the smaller things ; but 
I fear that they did not impress me, as they should 
have done, with anything like the true sense of the 
writer's greatness. It must be remembered that 
literary circles were then very few and very limited. 
We were most of us country lads, who were still 
reading the literature of the past. To us, it was 
more important to study Shakespeare, Milton, 
Dryden, Pope, Addison, Fielding and the other 
great writers who were gone, than to be inquiring 
about Thackeray's last work. We knew nothing 
and cared nothing about the literary gossip of the 

91 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

time ; we made no inquiries about the literary men 
of the day ; some of the men read Evangelical books ; 
most read nothing at all ; a few, as I have said, tried 
to get some mastery over English literature as a 
continuous development — but they were very few. 
The ignorance and the apathy of the great mass of 
men at Cambridge as regards literature was amazing. 
The best scholars in Greek and Latin only regarded 
English poetry as a medium to be rendered into 
Greek Iambics or Latin Lyrics ; the mathematicians, 
as a rule, knew and cared for nothing outside their 
mathematics. 

As for the profession of letters, that, in any shape, 
was regarded with pity and contempt. The late 
Tom Taylor, sometime Fellow of Trinity and after- 
wards dramatist, man of letters, and editor o^ Punchy 
was always spoken of by his old friend, the tutor 
of Christ's, as " poor Tom Taylor ! " Yet " poor 
Tom " did very well ; made a little noise in his 
own day; lived in plenty and comfort; and among 
literary folk was well regarded. The literary life, 
however, was still languishing in contempt. Writers, 
by profession were many of them hacks, dependents, 
Bohemians, and disreputable in their manners. So, 
at least, they were regarded ; and, if one reads about 
the writers of the forties and the fifties, not without 
some reason. 

The only journalism that was accounted worthy 
of a gentleman and a scholar was the writing of 
leaders for the Times. When the penny news- 
papers began, great was the derision heaped upon 

92 



SIR tVALTER BESANT 

the " young lions " by their contemporaries who 
started the Saturday Review. The university, in 
fact, considered only two professions : the Church, 
which included lectureships, professorships, and 
fellowships at the colleges ; and the Bar. Nothing 
else was thought worthy of a scholar. School- 
mastering was a refuge, not a profession ; art was 
an unknown calling — to the university ; the other 
professions, as architecture, the work of the actuary, 
engineering, science of all kinds, were not recog- 
nised. They belonged, perhaps, to University 
College, London, and the current and kindly name 
for that institution was " Stinkomalee." 

I have mentioned the Saturday Review. That 
paper first appeared in my undergraduate days, and 
did more to create journalism as a profession than 
would be believed at the present moment, when 
journalists are recruited from all classes. It was 
understood, at the outset, that it was wholly written 
by university men, and mostly by Cambridge men ; 
their names were whispered — the names of dons. 
The paper assumed the manner of authority ; such 
authority as a scholar has a right to exercise ; that 
is to say, a superior manner, as of deeper and wider 
knowledge. It heaped derision on the shams of 
the time ; and especially on the shams which had 
gathered round the Evangelical party ; the pietistic 
sermons; the snuffling hypocrisies; the half-con- 
cealed self-seeking, the narrowness, and the tyranny 
of it; the scamped services and the wretched build- 
ings and villainous singing. Never was a party 

93 



AUTOBIOGRAPHT OF 

more handsomely banged and beaten week after 
week ; never was derision more piled up with every 
number than over the cant and the unreality of this 
party. On Sunday the paper became part of the 
breakfast ; it was read with a savage joy. I think, 
looking back, that the slating and the bludgeoning 
were quite too savage ; yet the fearlessness with 
which the bludgeon or the rapier was handled 
impressed the world. None of the Evangelical 
lights were spared. Lord Shaftesbury heard, to his 
disgust, that his deity was an old man of an un- 
certain temper sitting on a cloud ; a great light in 
the Evangelical party was shown by his own 
recorded prayers before going into the Senate 
House to have treated the Almighty as a judicious 
coach ; the early extravagances of Charles Spurgeon, 
then regarded in certain circles as another Wesley, 
were exposed; the missionaries of the narrow school 
were handled with a dexterity which Sydney Smith 
might have envied. The excuse for this savagery 
was that the time wanted it. I do not think that a 
paper conducted on the same lines would now do 
any good at all ; but we want now, and want it 
badly, a paper written wholly by scholars who will 
speak with the authority of scholars. The Saturday 
Review began to fall off when it began to lose its 
old authority. 

There was no ladies* society, or very little, at 
Cambridge. I myself was so fortunate as to be 
invited to one or two houses where there were 
daughters. Most of the men had no chance of 

94 



SIR JVALTER BESANT 

speaking to a lady during the whole of the university 
course. Many of our men came from country 
farms, or were drawn from the " statesmen " of 
Cumberland ; you may imagine, therefore, that they 
were tolerably rough. The three years of Cambridge 
did something for them, but there were no compen- 
sations for the loss of ladies' society. None of the 
dons were married ; the heads of houses and the 
professors alone were married. As for the town, I 
do not think that there was any kind of intercourse 
between the town of Cambridge and the colleges. 

The university, in fact, was still a collection of 
monastic establishments. It was the end of a sleepy 
time, but change was rapidly approaching. I saw 
the place, I repeat, as it had been all through the 
eighteenth century. With the men of my time I felt 
the coming change. Close fellowships were thrown 
open ; close scholarships fell into the common 
treasury of endowment ; science was beginning to 
demand recognition ; scholars were looking across 
to Germany with envy ; the rule of the Evangelicals 
was relaxing. Dissenters and Jews were beginning 
to be admitted to the university. They had to go 
to chapel and to pass the " little go," with its ex- 
amination upon Paley's Evidences of Christianity ; 
and they could hold neither fellowship nor scholar- 
ship. They were allowed, however, to go in for 
the Tripos examinations. 

I have omitted to allude to one little distinction 
that I gained. In my second year, Calverley an- 
nounced an examination for a prize in the study of 

95 



AUTOBIOGRAPHT OF 

the Pickwick Papers. The examination was held in 
the evening in his own rooms. If I remember 
aright there were about ten candidates, most of 
whom had no chance whatever. The paper, a copy 
of which is appended, is one of the cleverest things 
that Calverley ever did. We were allowed, I think, 
two hours, or perhaps three. When the papers were 
handed in, we refreshed ourselves after our labours 
with a supper of oysters, beer, and milk-punch. The 
result gave me the first prize, arid Skeat the second. 
There was a good deal of talk about the exami- 
nation ; copies of the paper were in great request 
all over the university ; and for a whole day Skeat 
and I were famous. 

Another little episode. One day Calverley, then 
a fellow, stopped me in the court and invited me 
to his rooms after hall. " I 've got a young French- 
man," he said. " He's clever. Come and be 
amused." I went. The young Frenchman spoke 
English as well as anybody ; he told quantities of 
stories in a quiet, irresponsible way, as if he was an 
outsider looking on at the world. No one went to 
chapel that evening. After the port, which went 
round with briskness for two or three hours, the 
young Frenchman went to the piano and began to 
sing in a sweet, flexible, high baritone or tenor. 
Presently somebody else took his place at the instru- 
ment, and he, with Calverley, and two or three 
dummies, performed a Roval Italian Opera in very 
fine style. The young Frenchman's name was 
George Du Maurier. Years afterwards, when I 

96 



SIR IV A LT E R B E S A N T 

came to know him, I reminded him of this bliss- 
ful evening — which he remembered perfectly. One 
of the songs he sang in French had a very sweet and 
touching air. Calverley remembered it, and Sendall 
wrote some verses for it. They are preserved as a 
footnote to some reminiscences of mine in Sendall's 
memoir of Calverley, his brother-in-law. 

And so my time came to an end. What did 
Cambridge do for me ? Well, it seems as if it did 
everything for me. For a time, at least, it knocked 
on the head all my literary aspirations. As regards 
literature, indeed, I understood that I had to study 
the poets of my own speech seriously, and I began 
to do so. Writing had to wait. It made holy 
orders impossible for me, though, as yet, I did not 
understand this important fact. It widened the 
whole of my mind in every imaginable way. It seems 
to me now, looking back, that except for my three 

early years with H. A , my education only began 

when I entered college ; imperfect as it was when I 
left, I had, at least, acquired standards and models. 
I was reputed, I believe, to have failed in my degree. 
Well, there are so many other useful things besides 
mathematics, and I was quite high enough for any 
mathematical powers that I possessed. I had ob- 
tained, in addition, much Latin and Greek, and a 
certain insight into Divinity, with a good solid foun- 
dation of English, French, and German literature, 
read by myself. There is another point. Much 
more in those days than at present, when everything 
is levelled, was Cambridge a school of manners. 
7 97 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

Consider: we were all thrown together in a small col- 
lege, on terms of intimacy. There was, as I have said, 
the son of the country gentleman of good family; 
the son of the country clergyman; the son of the 
London merchant; the son of the London physician, 
barrister, or solicitor; the lad from the country town; 
the lad from the farm ; the lad from the manufac- 
turing centre ; the son of the tradesman : all these 
lads lived together in amity. But there were leaders 
among us, and manners were softened — things were 
learned which had not been guessed before. New 
habits of thought, new points of refinement, a wider 
mind, came out of this intimacy of so many different 
youths from different homes. If I may judge from 
myself, the effect of Cambridge upon the youth of 
the time was wholly and unreservedly beneficial. 

AN EXAMINATION PAPER. 

"THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF THE PICKWICK 
CLUB." 

Cambridge (1857). 

1. Mention any occasions on which it is specified that 
the Fat Boy was not asleep; and that (i) Mr. Pickwick 
and (2) Mr. Weller, senior, ran. Deduce from expres- 
sions used on one occasion Mr. Pickwick's maximum of 
speed. 

2. Translate into coherent English, adding a note wher- 
ever a word, a construction, or an allusion requires it : — 

"Go on, Jemmy — like black-eyed Susan — ail 
in the Downs " — " Smart chap that cabman — 
handled his fives well — but if I 'd been your 
98 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

friend in the green jemmy — punch his head — 
pig's whisper — pieman, too." 
Elucidate the expression, " the Spanish Traveller," and 
the " narcotic bedstead." 

3. Who were Mr, Staple, Goodwin, Mr. Brooks, 
Villam, Mrs. Bunkin, " Old Nobs," " cast-iron head," 
" young Bantam " ? 

4. What operation was performed on Tom Smart's 
chair ? Who little thinks that in which pocket, of what 
garment, in where, he has left what, entreating him to re- 
turn to whom, with how many what, and all how big ? 

5. Give, approximately, the height of Mr. Dubbley ; 
and, accurately, the Christian names of Mr. Grummer, 
Mrs. Raddle, and the Fat Boy ; also the surname of the 
Zephyr. 

6. " Mr. Weller's knowledge of London was extensive 
and peculiar." Illustrate this by a reference to the facts. 

7. Describe the Rebellion which had irritated Mr. Nup- 
kins on the day of Mr. Pickwick's arrest. 

8. Give in full Samuel Weller's first compliment to 
Mary, and his father's critique upon the same young lady. 
What church was on the valentine that first attracted 
Mr. Samuel's eye in the shop ? 

9. Describe the common Profeel-machine. 

10. State the component parts of dog's nose; and sim- 
plify the expression "• taking a grinder." 

11. On finding his principal in the pound, Mr. Weller 
and the town-beadle varied directly. Show that the latter 
was ultimately eliminated, and state the number of rounds 
in the square which is not described. 

12. "Any think for air and exercise; as the wery old 
donkey observed ven they voke him up from his deathbed 
to carry ten gen'lmen to Greenwich in a tax-cart." lUus- 

LofC. 99 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

trate this by stating any remark recorded in the Pickwick 
Papers to have been made by a (previously) dumb animal, 
with the circumstances under which he made it. 

13. What kind of cigars did Mr. Ben Allen chiefly 
smoke, and where did he knock and take naps alternately, 
under the impression that it was his home ? 

14. What was the ordinary occupation of Mr. Sawyer's 
boy .' whence did Mr. Allen derive the idea that there was 
a special destiny between Mr. S. and Arabella ? 

15. Describe Weller's Method of "gently indicating 
his presence " to the young lady in the garden ; and the 
form of salutation usual among the coachmen of the 
period. 

16. State any incidents you know in the career of Tom 
Martin, butcher, previous to his incarceration. 

17. Give Weller's Theories for the extraction of Mr. 
Pickwick from the Fleet. Where was his wife's will 
found ? 

18. How did the old lady make a memorandum, and of 
what, at whist ? Show that there were at least three times 
as many fiddles as harps in Muggleton at the time of the 
ball at Manor Farm. 

19. What is a red-faced Nixon ? 

20. Write down the chorus to each verse of Mr. 
S. Weller's song, and a sketch of the mottle-faced man's 
excursus on it. Is there any ground for conjecturing that 
he (Sam) had more brothers than one ? 

21. How many lumps of sugar went into the Shepherd's 
liquor as a rule ? and is any exception recorded ? 

22. What seal was on Mr. Winkle's letter to his father? 
What penitential attitude did he assume before Mr. Pick- 
wick ? 

23. "She's a-swelling visibly." When did the same 

100 



SIR WALTER BESJNT 

phenomenon occur again, and what fluid caused the pres- 
sure on the body in the latter case ? 

24. How did Mr. Weller, senior, define the Funds, and 
what view did he take of Reduced Consols ? in what terms 
is his elastic force described, when he assaulted Mr. Stiggins 
at the meeting ? Write down the name of the meeting. 

25. Tlpo^aro'yvcofjLoov: a good judge of cattle; hence, 
a good judge of character. Note on ^Esch. Ag. — Illus- 
trate the theory involved by a remark of the parent Weller. 

26. Give some account of the word " fanteeg," and 
hazard any conjecture explanatory of the expression " My 
Prooshan Blue," applied by Mr. Samuel to Mr. Tony 
Weller. 

27. In developing to P.M. his views of a proposition, 
what assumption did Mr. Pickwick feel justified in making? 

28. Deduce from a remark of Mr. Weller, junior, the 
price per mile of cabs at the period. 

29. What do you know of the hotel next the Bull at 
Rochester ? 

30. Who, besides Mr. Pickwick, is recorded to have 
worn gaiters ? 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



Chapter VI 

A TRAMP ABROAD 

TO some it may be astonishing to find young 
men eager to get through their university 
course in order to get back to the old 
school in which they want to work for the whole of 
their lives. Yet there is no kind of work more 
delightful to those who are born for it than that of 
a master in a public school. Any one with ordinary 
powers of insight and sympathy can teach a pupil 
willing to be taught. The work of the schoolmaster 
is more than to teach the willing ; it is to convert 
the unwilling into the willing; to make the indolent 
active, to stimulate the flagging, and to watch over 
every boy under his care. There are the pleasures 
of authority and power for him ; he is an un- 
questioned dictator ; he is a judge ; he awards pun- 
ishments and prizes. It is not a line that makes 
many demands upon the intellect. Most school- 
masters never advance beyond the routine of their 
daily work ; the mathematician forgets the higher 
mathematics ; the chemist ceases his research ; the 
scholar works no more at his subjects ; all are 
content with the knowledge that they have acquired, 
and with the equipment that is wanted for the day's 
work. 

Z02 



SIR JV A L r E R B E S A N T 

On the other hand, to one who is not born for 
that kind of work the position is by no means 
pleasant, and to some it is intolerable. In my own 
case it was not pleasant, but it was not intolerable. 
After a few months of looking about and waiting, 
during which I made certain first attempts at jour- 
nalism, I took a mastership in a school. The school 
was Leamington College, and I was chosen as 
mathematical master, with the understanding that I 
was to be ordained and to become, in addition, 
chaplain to the college. The head-master at the 
time was the Rev. E. St. John Parry, a good scholar 
and, I think, a good schoolmaster. The town was 
full of pleasant people. Some of them were hospi- 
table to me, and I have very friendly recollections 
of the place. The boys belonged chiefly to the 
higher class in the town. I formed an alliance with 
another master. We took a small house and made 
ourselves comfortable ; the hours were by no means 
long, and we were not, as is the case with many 
schools, surrounded by boys all day and every 
evening. 

While at Leamington I had a great experience. I 
have said that in those days very few of the under- 
graduates knew anything about foreign travel. In 
my own case, for instance, at twenty-three years of 
age what had I seen ? I had never been abroad at 
all. Of England I had seen London, Cambridge, 
Ely, Winchester, Liverpool, my native town, and 
the Isle of Wight. It seems to a modern young 
man who runs about everywhere, and is more fa- 

103 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

miliar with Cairo than with Cheapside, a poor show. 
Mine, however, was not by any means an exceptional 
case. The younger dons had begun to travel : in 
the famous tour — is it still famous ? — of " Brown, 
Jones, and Robinson," one at least of the three was 
a Cambridge man. They took reading parties to 
the Lakes and into Scotland — is Clough's poem, his 
long-vacation pastoral, " The Bothie of Tober-na- 
Vuolich," still remembered? They went about 
with knapsacks, just as the young fellows with bi- 
cycles now go about, but they walked. And they 
had begun the craze for Alpine climbing, which is 
still with us, somewhat moderated. It was the 
beginning of athletics. The men who trudged with 
the knapsacks were called " Mussulmen " — a subtle 
and crafty joke. 

It was with the greatest joy that I received a 
proposal to join Calverley and Peile on a walking 
tour. They proposed to try the Tyrol, then off the 
beaten track, with no modern hotels and little or no 
experience of tourists. With us was Samuel Walton, 
a Fellow of St. John's, one of the first of those 
who braved the world and wore a beard. He was 
also one of the most kindly and amiable of creatures ; 
well read, sympathetic, always in good temper, and 
the best travelling companion possible. He became 
afterwards Rector of Fulbourne, and died at two- 
and-thirty of consumption. 

It was arranged that I should join Walton at 
Heidelberg, where he had been learning German for 
three or four months ; that we were to go on to 

104 



SIR fVALTER BESANT 

Innsbruck, where Calverley and Peile would join us, 
and that then the knapsack business would begin. 
I carried with me a flannel suit, which at the outset 
looked quite nice and cool ; I wore a pair of stout 
boots studded with nails for walking on ice ; in my 
knapsack I had a spare shirt, a nightshirt, another 
collar, a brush and comb, socks, handkerchiefs, 
toothbrush, pipe and tobacco. I had no change of 
clothes, and my flannels were a light grey in colour. 
Thus equipped, I started for a six weeks' journey. 
The other men were as lightly clad and as slenderly 
provided. 

It was all perfectly delightful. I believe, but I 
am not sure, that I went through by way of Ostend 
to Cologne, a journey then of about twenty-four 
hours. From Cologne I got to Konigswinter, saw 
the Drachenfels, and went up the Rhine. I remem- 
ber that there was a delightful American family on 
board the boat. I made my way to Heidelberg, and 
I found Walton waiting for me. The other day I 
was at Heidelberg again, and I tried to find the 
place where we stayed, but failed. It was a lodging, 
not a hotel, and we took our meals at a students' 
restaurant, where things were cheap and plentiful, 
and where the wine was of a thinness and sourness 
inconceivable to one whose ideas of wine were based 
on port and sherry. We saw the students marching 
about in their flat caps, with shawls over their 
shoulders ; we saw them in their beer-drinking, and 
we saw them at a duel with swords — one is glad to 
have seen so much. We wandered over the castle 

105 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

— there was no inclined railway up the hill in those 
days ; we bathed in the Neckar, ice-cold and swift; 
we climbed the opposite hill and discovered another 
castle. We talked German religiously — there were 
maidens at our lodgings, who made it pleasant to 
learn their language. I had read a good deal of 
German at school and afterwards, so that I had a 
foundation in grammar and vocabulary. One wants 
very little grammar to get along in German, and to 
understand it. It is the vocabulary that is wanted. 
By dint of finding out the names of everything in 
German, I made rapid progress in a helter-skelter 
way. I was sorry to leave Heidelberg, and should 
have been content to give up the mountains and the 
glaciers, and to complete my German studies in this 
very pleasant manner. 

However, we had to go. I forget the geography; 
we went on to Innsbruck, somehow. I remember 
that we passed a lovely lake, called, I think, the 
Aachen See ; that we stopped at a fashionable hotel 
filled with Germans ; and that we took two or three 
preliminary climbs in the hills. However, we got 
to Innsbruck; and while we waited for the other 
two, we climbed a big rolling mountain, not a peak, 
close to the ancient town. Then the other two 
men came and we began our march. 

Where did we go ? I don't know. Down the 
Zeller Thai, where they sang to us in the evening, 
and we sang to them. Calverley had a pleasing 
tenor, Walton an excellent bass, and my voice, 
though of poor quality, was tolerably high. We 

io6 



SIR fFJLTER BESANT 

sang the old glees, " All among the Barley " ; 
"Cares that Canker"; "Hark! the Lark"; and 
so on. The Tyrolese were good enough to 
applaud. They were, I remember, extremely 
friendly. 

Then we came to a mountain — was it the 
Gross Glockner ? — which we proposed to climb. 
Heavens! How high it looked! and how steep 
were the sides ! I, for one, was delighted, I con- 
fess, when our guides came and said that the 
mountain was too dangerous ; that there had been 
so much rain that the snow slopes were not safe ; in 
a word, they would not take us. 

So we wandered elsewhere. I remember getting 
to a hut high on a mountain side ; they gave us 
something to eat ; we slept on straw ; in the morn- 
ing we started at half-past four with a breakfast of 
fried eggs and coarse bread and melted snow. We 
had before us a " low pass." We should get to 
our halting place at four or five in the afternoon. 
Unfortunately, we took a wrong line and crossed a 
high pass, not a low pass. We had no food of any 
kind with us ; only a single flask with schnaps ; 
it was the hardest day's work I had ever done. 
Finally we got to our inn at half-past eight in the 
evening. They gave us veal cutlets and bread ; and 
after supper, I, for my part, lay down on the floor 
and slept till eight next morning. 

It was a glorious time, but the days passed all too 
quickly. At Meran I had to leave the party and 
get home as fast as I could. The flannel suit was 

107 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

a sight to behold. Cruel thorns had lacerated the 
skirts, rains had fallen upon it, discolouration dis- 
figured it, and I had to get through Switzerland 
and France in the most disreputable rig possible to 
imagine. Part of my journey was a night spent in 
a diligence. My fellow passengers were two nuns, 
or sisters. One of them was elderly, the other was 
young, and we talked the whole night through. 
They asked endless questions about England. 
We were not tired or sleepy in the least ; and 
when we parted it was like the parting of old 
friends. My very dear ladies, I cherish the 
memory of that night. It was all too short. 

I remember stopping at a fashionable hotel in 
Zurich, where I took an obscure corner and hoped 
to escape observation. I arrived in Paris with a 
five-pound note and a few coppers at half-past five 
or six in the morning. What was I to do ? I 
found a restaurant and a waiter, looking very sleepy, 
sweeping out the place. I told him that I wanted 
change, and showed him the note. He took me to 
a den up ever so many stairs, where sat an English- 
man of villainous aspect. He gave me a handful 
of French money, which he said was the equivalent 
of the note, less his commission. I daresay he was 
a perfectly honest man, but I could never under- 
stand how it was that, after taking breakfast at my 
restaurant and travelling second class by Dieppe to 
Portsmouth, I had only fourpence left out of my 
five-pound note. 

I came back to Leamington to find trouble brew- 
io8 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

ing. The governors of the college wanted to know 
when I was going to be ordained. By this time I 
had passed the voluntary theological examination at 
Cambridge, and had nothing more to do except to 
pass the Bishop's examination. I put myself in 
communication with the Bishop's secretary, and 
with great depression of spirits prepared myself for 
perjury, because by this time I understood that the 
white tie would choke me. 

Then I heard that there were rumours among 
the governors. Somebody said that he feared — 
he was told — it was rumoured — that I was not 
sound on the Atonement. And day by day the 
truth was borne in upon me that I was not called 
and chosen for the office of deacon in the Church 
of England. 

Christmas came. I was to be ordained in the 
spring ; the Bishop had my name ; my credentials 
had been sent to him. And then — oh ! happi- 
ness ! — a door of release was thrown open. My 
friend Ebden, then a junior in the Colonial Office, 
came to see me. In his hand, so to speak, he held 
two colonial professorships. It seemed not im- 
probable that I might have either of them if I chose. 
Then I should not have to take orders ; then I 
should see something more of the world ; then I 
should travel across the ocean. If I chose ? Of 
course I chose. I jumped at the chance. I sent 
in my name. I was appointed. My choice was 
for the Mauritius, because the other place was in 
South Africa, and I don't like snakes. So when I 

109 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

returned to Leamington it was to give in my resig- 
nation in three months, with the joy of feeling that 
I need not trouble the Bishop of Worcester — to 
whom I forgot to send an excuse — and that no 
one thenceforward would so much as ask whether 
I was sound on the Atonement. 

It was a plunge ; it was an escape. Whither I 
was going, what adventures I should meet with, 
how things would end, I knew not, nor did I ask 
myself. Why should one pry into the future ? 
Though I could not suspect the fact, I was about 
to equip myself — with travel, with the society of 
all kinds of men, with the acquisition of things 
practical — for the real solid work of my life, which 
has been the observation of men and women, and 
the telling of stories about them. 



SIR IVALTER BESJNT 



Chapter VII 

L'iLE DE FRANCE 

IT was before the time of the Suez Canal, and 
before the time of big liners. The ship that 
carried me to Alexandria was called one of 
the finest in the fleet of the Peninsular and Oriental 
Company. She was a paddle-wheel of twelve hun- 
dred tons, named the Indus. It was before the 
time of competitive companies. The P. and O. 
managed things their own way ; their rates were 
high, but they treated the passengers like guests in 
a country house. There was no drinking on board, 
but at lunch and dinner bottled beer and wine were 
put on the table, as at a gentleman's house. After 
dinner the wine remained on the table for a short 
time ; in the evening whiskey and brandy were put 
out for half an hour only. A band was on board, 
which played every afternoon ; the passengers 
danced on deck ; the ship ploughed her way slowly 
through the waters ; in the cabins all lights were 
out at nine — or ten — I forget which. As a 
junior, I had a bunk in a cabin below the main 
deck. There were five berths assigned to young 
fellows going out to India; the place was dark at 
mid-day, and at night the darkness was Egyptian. 
The weather, however, was fine, and one was on 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

deck from early morning till nightfall, and one was 
young, and small discomforts mattered nothing. 
Besides, were we not seeing the world ? 

I seem to remember every day of that voyage : 
the coast of Portugal; the headlands of Spain; 
the Rock ; Malta, where we all went ashore and 
saw the town of Valetta, the Cathedral, and the 
Palace of the Knights. 

We landed at Alexandria and went on by train 
to Cairo, where we stayed, I think, two nights, and 
saw an eastern city — it was really eastern then. 

Then we went on by a shaky railway across the 
desert to Suez. It was a great joy actually to see 
the rolling grey sand of the desert. Halfway over 
we stopped at a desert station, where they gave us 
luncheon. Then we got to Suez, and here we 
divided. The passengers for Mauritius and Re- 
union went on board their little boat, and the 
Bombay people went on board their big boat. 

Our boat, in fact, was a little steamer of seven 
hundred tons, quite unfit for bad weather. Fortu- 
nately we had none. But it was in May, and the 
Red Sea was beginning to assert itself In the 
cabins the heat was stifling ; and they were infested 
with flying cockroaches and other creatures of prey. 
Therefore the whole company slept on deck. The 
mattresses were lugged up and spread out, and we 
lay side by side, with faces muffled to keep off the 
moonshine. It was curious to wake in the night 
and to see by the light of the moon the sleeping fig- 
ures, and to watch the waves in the white light, and 

1X2 



SIR TFALTER BESANT 

the jagged outline of the mountains of Arabia. In 
the evening, when we were near enough to see 
them, the rocks assumed all colours, purple, blue, 
crimson, golden. Among them the mountain they 
called Sinai reared its rugged head, painted by the 
western glow. 

We put in at Aden, and saw the native village 
and the water-works. Then we coasted round the 
rockbound Socotra and steered south for the Sey- 
chelles. I suppose there are other islands in the 
world as beautiful as these, but I have seen none 
that could approach them for the wonderful magic 
of the hills, which slope down to the water's edge, 
covered with trees and clothed in colour. The hot 
sun of the tropics, that knows no change, and has 
no season but one, makes a long summer of the 
year ; the sea that washes the feet of the hills is 
aglow with a warm light that makes it transparent ; 
fathoms below the ship one could see the tangled 
forest of weed lying still and motionless; above the 
weed rolled slowly an enormous shark. 

I believe the islanders have no energy ; no ambi- 
tions are left to them after a year or two in the 
place ; they have no desire for wealth ; they leave 
nature to grow a few things for them to send away ; 
they want very little money ; they care nothing for 
the outside world ; they lie in the shade, warmed 
through and through ; the air is never scorching 
and the heat never kills, for there is always a 
sea breeze, cool and sweet, morning and evening. 
There is a resident Commissioner, who has nothing 
8 113 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

to do ; there is a magistrate ; there are one or two 
priests. There was an AngHcan missionary, but in 
such a climate no one troubles to think about reli- 
gion, no one wants a change ; life comes unasked, 
it lasts awhile, it goes away. Where does it go ^. 
Nobody asks; nobody cares. On the verandah 
one sits with feet up and looks out into the forest 
beyond the bananas and the palms. Life is. What 
more does one want ? Why should one inquire ? 

From Seychelles, a run of some 1,500 miles, 
brings us to Mauritius. It is forty years since I 
landed at Port Louis. I believe there have been 
great changes. In 1867 a malarious fever declared 
itself, which has been endemic ever since. Port 
Louis was a gay and a sociable place in 1861. The 
wealthy quarter contained large and handsome 
houses, with gardens and deep verandahs. There 
was an open " Place," where the band played in 
the afternoon, while the carriages went round and 
round. There was a great deal of dinner giving ; 
there were dances in the cool season ; there was an 
Opera House, maintained by subscription ; there 
were two regiments in the place, besides artillery 
and engineers. What was more important to me 
was that I arrived at a time when everybody was 
young. In such a colony the merchants and 
planters in the good old times got rich and went 
home, leaving their affairs in the hands of younger 
men. It so happened that the houses of business 
were at this time nearly all in the hands of the 
younger men, consequently they were lively. More- 

114 



SIR IVJLTER BESANT 

over, a railway was about to be constructed, and we 
received a large addition to the Englishmen by the 
arrival of the engineers who were to construct it. 

In this place, then, I lived for six years and a 
half. There was a good deal of monotony, but 
the general tone was one of great cheerfulness. 
After a while I found the air of Port Louis, which 
is surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills from 
1,200 to 2,500 feet high, confined and relaxing. I 
therefore joined a mess of bachelors and lived for a 
time three or four miles out. We had a series of 
changes, for the men in the mess came and went. 
They were railway engineers ; they were Civil ser- 
vants ; they were managers and accountants of the 
banks ; they were partners in mercantile houses. 
Finally, and for the last two years, I settled in a 
charming little bungalow ten miles from town, 
with a garden growing most of the English and 
all the tropical vegetables, a mountain stream at 
the back, and a pool for bathing, and within 
reach of the central forests. 

As regards the college, I would say as little as 
possible, because it was a time of continual fight 
between the rector and the professors. The former 
is now dead, but probably there are living those 
who would be hurt by certain reminiscences. Suf- 
fice it to say, therefore, that he was a very clever 
and able man in the wrong place. He had been 
in the Austrian army, and retained a good deal of 
the Austrian ideas as to duty and discipline, which 
did not suit either an English public school, such 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

as the Government, which kept up the college at a 
heavy loss, desired, or a French lycee^ which it was, 
to all intents and purposes. He spoke French and 
English fluently, but both with a strong German 
accent, which made him look ridiculous ; he was 
not a scholar in any sense of the word ; he knew 
nothing that I could ever discover — certainly 
neither Latin, nor Greek, nor mathematics, nor his- 
tory. His only notions of teaching were those of 
an army crammer ; as for subjects to be taught, or 
text-books to be used, he knew absolutely nothing. 
His fitness for the post is illustrated by the fact 
that he wanted English history to be studied by 
young men of nineteen or twenty out of a miser- 
able little book compiled for candidates for German 
cavalry and infantry ! 1 do not know who was 
responsible for sending the poor man to the place ; 
but imagine the wisdom of the Colonial Office, and 
its profound knowledge of the Colonies, when it 
selected for a post of so much importance an Aus- 
trian for a colony almost entirely French, a man 
who had thrown over his religion for a Roman 
Catholic community, and an ex-lieutenant of the 
Austrian army in the very year when the French 
were driving the Austrians out of Italy ! At the 
same time he was distinctly a clever man, full of 
vast projects, not one of which could he carry out ; 
and incapable of treating his staff save as a sergeant 
treats the private soldier. 

When I landed, there were exactly eleven paying 
students in the college ; the rector had detached all 

ii6 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

the rest. I found the papers screaming against him 
every day, I found the whole of the French popu- 
lation in open hostility, and I found the staff of 
the college in a spirit of sullen obstruction. We 
got along, however, somehow. More men came out 
from England, and, despite the chief, we managed 
to put things in some order. The pupils began to 
come back again ; scholarships of £,100 a year, 
tenable for four years In England, attracted them, 
and perhaps the new staff was more approved than 
the old. But the rector continued to quarrel with 
everybody. For a long time I succeeded in getting 
things carried on with some semblance of English 
order ; but amicable relations were gradually dropped, 
for he was always intensely jealous of my authority 
and my popularity. Yet he could not manage with- 
out me, though he suspected, quite without any 
foundation, that I was the instigator of many of the 
attacks upon him. At last he ventured to attack me 
openly. It was the final act, and it was suicidal. 
For I took the very strong step of addressing a letter 
to the Governor, in which I accused my chief of a 
great many things which there is no need to repeat. 
It meant, of course, that these things had to be 
proved, or that I should be turned out of the 
service. 

The Governor appointed a commission, and the 
rector was suspended during its sitting. It lasted 
nearly a year ; at the end of that time two of the 
three commissioners reported that the charges wanted 
clearer proof, and the third commissioner refused to 

117 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

sign this report. The rector returned, but his rule 
was really over. I, who had been acting in command 
during the sitting of the commission, now claimed a 
year's furlough, and got it. Observe that there was 
no question of charging me with insubordination 
for attacking my chief; the facts were too obviously 
proved, as everybody could read for himself. I 
came home for a year's leave. Six months later the 
Legislative Council flatly refused supplies so long as 
the rector remained at the college. He was there- 
fore sent home, and had influence enough to get a 
pension. They offered the rectorship to me ; but I 
had had enough of educational work, and I declined 
it. At the end of my furlough, I stepped out into 
the world, without a pension, to begin all over 
again. 

So much of my official life. The continual 
struggle worried me all the time, but perhaps it 
kept me alive. The rector had at least the power 
of making his enemies "sit up." In a tropical 
country it must be confessed that it is a great thing 
to be kept on the alert. 

The staflf of the college was a mixed lot ; it con- 
sisted nominally of four or five " professors " and a 
dozen "junior masters." Among the former was my 
friend Frederick Guthrie, late Professor of Physics 
in the Royal School of Mines and founder of the 
Physical Society of London, a Fellow of the Royal 
Society, and a man of infinite good qualities. He 
was my most intimate friend from our first meeting 
in 1861 to his death in 1887. It is difficult to 

118 



SIR tV A LT E R B ES J NT 

speak of him in terms adequate. He was a humour- 
ist in an odd, indescribable way ; he did strange 
things gravely ; he was a delightful donkey in 
money matters ; when he drew his salary — J^^o a 
month — he prepaid his mess expenses, and then 
stuffed the rest into his pocket and gave it to who- 
ever asked for it, or they took it. Hence he was 
popular with the broken down Englishmen of shady 
antecedents who hung about Port Louis. He never 
had any money ; never saved any ; always muddled 
it away. Like many such men, he was not satisfied 
with his scientific reputation ; he wanted to be a 
poet. He published two volumes of poetry, both 
with the same result. He was also clever as a 
modeller, but he neglected this gift. He did some 
good work in the colony in connection with the 
chemistry of the sugar-cane ; he maintained a steady 
attitude of resistance to the rector, who could do 
nothing with him; and he resigned his post and 
came away from Mauritius at the same time as 
myself. 

Another professor was a learned Frenchman named 
Leon Doyen. He had amassed an immense pile of 
notes for a history of the colony, but he died, and 
I know not what became of them. He lent me once 
a MS. book full of notes, taken by himself as a 
student in Paris, of the lectures of Ampere on the 
formation and history of the French language. I 
copied all these notes, and used them for reading 
old French, in which language he lent me all the 
books he had. Some years later a book was pub- 

119 



JUTOBIOGRAPHT OF 

lished in England which contained these notes ahnost 
verbatim. I have often wondered whether Doyen's 
MS. book furnished the material. 

The masters were a wonderful scratch lot. 
There were two or three mulattos ; one or two 
Frenchmen down on their luck ; and the rest were 
broken Englishmen. One man had been a digger 
in Victoria; two had been in the army; another, it 
was discovered, had " served time " at Cape Town 
— him the Colonial Secretary put on board a sugar 
ship and sent back to his native country. I have 
often wondered who this man was, and what was 
his history ; he had good manners — too good to 
be genuine ; he was a fine and audacious liar; he 
had a good name. Fifteen years later I saw his 
death in the paper; he was then living in chambers 
in Pall Mall East. 

The secretary of the college was a French Creole. 
His grandfather, who was still living in 1862 or 
1863, an old man nearly ninety, was the Marquis 
de la Roche du Rouzit, and had formerly been page 
to Marie Antoinette. I once found him out, and 
talked with him, but he was too old — his memory 
was gone. He lived in a cottage, beside a most 
lovely bay among hills and woods ; his principal 
occupation was angling for ecrevisses in the stream, 
and fishing in the bay from a dug-out. Yes — he 
remembered Antoinette. What was she like to look 
at ? She was the Queen ; they cut ofi^ her head ; 
it was an infamy. Very little historical information 
was to be obtained from the old man ; but he was 

120 



SIR PV ALTER BESANT 

very venerable of aspect, and looked, what he had 
always been, a gentleman of the old school. 

There was another ancient person in the 
colony. He was the serving brother of the Ma- 
sonic Lodges — the outer guard. At our dinners 
after lodge I used to get the old man to sit beside 
me and to talk. He had been in the roar of La 
Vendee ; drummer-boy to La Roche Jaquelin. He 
grew animated when he talked of the battles and 
his escapes, and his precious drum. His daughters 
lived in the Seychelles, and made lovely fans from 
a certain palm leaf, 1 think. I have one still ; that 
is, my daughter has it. I suppose that the good 
old drummer — "Aha! M'sieu — j'etais le tam- 
bour, de La Roche Jaquelin — Oui — oui, M'sieu', 
moi qui vous le dis — le tambour" — is dead long 
ago. 

It was a strange, confused, picturesque kind of 
life that one led there. The younger partners of 
the mercantile houses lived over their offices ; one 
or two of the bank officials lived in the banks ; the 
officers were in the barracks, always ready to come 
out and dine with the civilians ; the Anglican 
bishop formed a centre of quiet life which was, to 
tell the truth, useful as an example ; some of the 
Roman Catholic priests were very good fellows. 
Of course we made the great mistake of not seeing 
more of the French Creoles, many of whom were 
highly cultivated and pleasant people ; but they did 
not like the English rule, and they made no secret 
of their dislike. Nous sommes un pays conquis was 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

the echo of their paper about once a week. And 
there were the planters. * 

There was one mercantile house where I was a 
frequent visitor. Two of the partners, both quite 
young men, ran a mess over their offices ; there I 
met many of the skippers of the ships which brought 
out cargo to this firm. Sea-captains are an honest, 
frank and confiding folk. They have no suspicion 
or jealousies of their brother man, they have no 
private axe to grind, and they have a good many 
things to talk about. It was pleasant to call upon one 
on board his own ship and have him all to oneself 
in his cabin. One of them was a poet, he read me 
yards of his own poetry ; another confided to me 
the miseries he endured at being separated from his 
wife ; another told me yarns of things that he had 
witnessed — things tacenda. One, I remember, 
commanded a fine four-masted clipper which put in 
for repairs. She was bound for Trinidad with a 
cargo of Chinese coolies. The quarter deck was 
defended by four small cannonades loaded with 
grape; the captain's cabin had a fine stand of arms ; 
every sailor carried a weapon of some kind ; every 
officer had a revolver and could use it — and, mind, 
it takes a great deal of practice to use a revolver. 
They admitted up the hatchways about twenty 
coolies at a time and only for a few minutes ; then 
they were driven below and another twenty came 
up ; and so on all day. The captain told me that 
the coolies had knives ; that there were women 
among them, for whom they fought; that the 

122 



SIR fVALTER BESANT 

women were sick of it, and had mostly got through 
the port-holes and so drowned themselves ; and 
that he was most anxious to get his repairs done 
and be off again, because every night some of the 
coolies got out and tried to swim ashore — which, 
he said, was a dead loss to everybody, including 
themselves, because the sharks got them all. In 
the little saloon of this ship was sitting a young 
Chinese lady, apparently all alone, but I suppose 
she had someone to look after her ; she was beau- 
tifully dressed in thick silk, gleaming with gold 
thread. 

Another man told me how, being then a mate, 
cholera broke out on board a ship bringing coolies 
from Calicut to Mauritius. All the patients either 
died or got well except one man. Now, if no one 
was down with cholera, the captain and the Indian 
apothecary, who served for doctor, could pretend 
that there was no sickness, and so get a clean bill 
of health. But if there was a single case on board, 
or anything to show that there had been an out- 
break of cholera, they would have to go to Quaran- 
tine Island and there stay for six weeks after the 
last case. So, to make everything snug, they 
chucked the last patient overboard. After all, they 
did not get a clean bill, because the skipper and the 
apothecary quarrelled, and the latter split. Such 
were the tales they told. 

Among my friends were two planters, whose 
hospitality to me was unbounded. The first was a 
gentleman — I use the word in its old and narrow 

123 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

sense — an Oxford man, a man of the finest man- 
ners, full of dignity and courtesy, a patriarch in 
his house. He used to invite me every year to 
spend Christmas with the party he got together. 
This party consisted of himself and madame, his 
three daughters, and his two sons. The bachelors 
all slept in a pavilion apart from the main house, 
where we had mattresses laid on the floor. Early 
in the morning, about half-past five, we were 
awakened, and after a cup of tea had a ramble in the 
woods and a bathe in the ravine. After breakfast, 
in the heat of the day, protected by big pith hel- 
mets, we went fishing in the stream. We fished 
for a large and very toothsome river fish called the 
gouramij and gourami a la bechamel is one of the 
finest preparations of fish that can be set before 
the most accomplished and finished gourmet. And 
the way of fishing was this. The river ran over and 
under boulders, at intervals opening into a small 
deep pool. We had a net and we all went into the 
water, swimming and pushing the net before us. 
When we got to the end of the pool one man dived 
down and pulled the fish out of the meshes of the 
net. We got back in the afternoon, and some of 
us slept off the fatigues and the heat of the morn- 
ing. When the sun got low we walked about the 
lawns and among the flowers. At seven or so we 
sat down to dinner, and at ten we were all in bed. 

The other planter was a Scotchman. I am 
ashamed when I think of the way I abused his 
hospitality ; but it was his own fault, he always 

124 



SIR tVALTER BESANT 

made me welcome and more than welcome. His 
estate — he belonged to the Clan Macpherson, and 
therefore the estate was called Cluny — lay on the 
other side of the island, not the Port Louis side. 
It was high up — about i,6oo feet above the sea 
level ; it was always cool at night, and was carved 
out of the silent forest which lay all round it and 
shut it in. The place was most secluded and re- 
tired. The house was large and rambling, all on 
one floor, with half-a-dozen bedrooms, a dining- 
room, a salon, and a broad verandah. In the gar- 
den there were peach-trees, — but the peaches would 
never ripen, — strawberries kept in the shade, green 
peas, celery, bananas, guavas — In short, all kinds of 
fruit, vegetables, and flowers. There was also a swim- 
ming-bath. In the morning I went out with the 
planter or his nephew. Mackintosh, on his daily visit 
to the fields. If we passed beyond the estate into 
the forest we came upon ravines, waterfalls, hanging 
woods, chattering monkeys, and deer in herds. 
The deer knew very well when it was close time ; 
they would let you get near enough to see them 
clearly, then with a sudden alarm they would bound 
away, the graceful creatures. Two or three times 
I went shooting the deer ; I am really grateful that 
I never got a shot at one, although I should cer- 
tainly never have hit one had he been only a dozen 
yards away, because in all kinds of sport I have always 
been the worst of duffers. How can one be a good 
shot with eyes which are not only short-sighted but 
also slow-sighted ? 

125 



AUTOBIOGRAPHT OF 

There was a range of hills, on one side of which 
part of the estate lay. Macpherson planted the hill- 
side with coffee ; but then came the heavy rains and 
washed his plants away, and there was an end of 
coffee planting on the island. Macpherson was too 
enterprising, however, and there were too many 
hurricanes, so he had to give up his estate. Mack- 
intosh, his nephew, was put into another estate by 
one of the banks, and did well for a time ; then his 
luck failed him, and he, too, had to resign. He 
was an asthmatic, and died at the age of five-and- 
thirty or so. 

The most remarkable of the men I met in the 
island was my old friend James Longridge. He was 
the constructor of the railway ; a Cambridge man, 
formerly articled to George Stephenson, a good 
mathematician, and a man full of inventions. His 
principal invention was the wire gun. A model of 
this gun he had mounted beside a quiet bay, where 
no one ever went, and he would make up small 
parties to experiment with it, firing across the bay. 
He offered the gun to the English Government ; 
they kept him hanging on and off for some twenty 
years ; at last, when he was past seventy years of 
age, they accepted it and gave him, in mockery, 
a pension of ^200 a year — a pension at the age 
of seventy in return for a new gun, light, easily 
handled, and capable of any amount of development ! 
I do not think that they have even called it the 
Longridge gun. 

I have mentioned Quarantine Island. This was 

126 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

an island about thirty miles from Mauritius, in the 
Indian Ocean. It was provided with a lighthouse, 
and a medical man was always stationed there. If a 
ship put in with fever or cholera on board, she had 
to go to Quarantine Island, land her passengers, and 
wait there for the disease to work itself out. On 
one occasion a coolie ship was taken there with a 
frightful outbreak of cholera on board. Then one 
of the English doctors in Mauritius did a fine thing, 
for he volunteered to go and help the quarantine 
officer. Some hundreds died during this outbreak, 
but a great many were saved by the self-devotion 
of this man. 

I knew the quarantine officer, who had been an 
army doctor. He once asked me to spend a fort- 
night with him. I accepted, taking the risk of a 
cholera ship being brought there, in which case I 
should have had to stay there and see it out. None 
came, however. It was a most curious experience. 
The island is about a mile and a half in circumfer- 
ence, surrounded by a kind of natural sea-wall ; a 
coral bank runs out all round except in two places. 
The doctor had a very good house all to himself. 
There were two men in charge of the lighthouse, 
there were a few Indian servants, and no one else 
was on the island except the ghosts of the dead 
who lie all over it. At sunset the Indians hastened 
to take refuge In their cottages ; if they looked out 
after dark, they saw white things moving about ; 
there was no kind of doubt in their minds that they 
actually did see white things. I myself looked for 

127 



AUTOBIOGRAPHT OF 

them but saw nothing. How my friend could exist 
in such a solitude, with the unseen presence of the 
white things, was most amazing ; it was, however, a 
great joy to him if he could catch a visitor. It was 
a very quiet fortnight. One day was exactly like 
another. We got up at six, before sunrise ; we 
walked round the island twice, on the sea-wall ; we 
then bathed, but leisurely ; bathing was only possible 
in very shallow water on account of" things." There 
was an astonishing quantity of " things " directly 
the water got a bit deeper. One had to keep on 
shoes on account of the /aff, a small fish which lurks 
about the rocks with a poisonous backbone, which 
he sticks into the bather's foot and lames him for 
six months. There was also the tazar^ a kind of 
sea-pike, which delights in biting a large piece out 
of a man's leg if he can get at him ; there are young 
sharks ; there are also the great sea slugs — the 
beche de mer^ which are not nice to step upon. 

In one place, where the coral reef stopped, there 
was a curious pillar of rock about forty feet above 
the water and twenty or thirty feet in diameter. It 
stood a few yards from the shore, and was covered 
with innumerable wild birds. My friend would 
never shoot them ; we would sit down by the shore 
and watch this multitude flying, screaming, fishing, 
fighting all day long. I know nothing about birds 
and have not the least idea of the names of these 
specimens ; but of their numbers I have a lively 
recollection. In the transparent water between the 
shore and the rock there were water-snakes. I have 

128 



SIR WALTER B ES A N T 

never seen anything more beautiful than the motions 
of these creatures, darting about in all directions ; 
they were of many colours and mostly, as it seems 
to my memory, about three feet long. 

After getting through our exercise and our bathing 
we went through a form of dressing without putting 
on too much, and were ready for breakfast. There 
was always fish caught that morning, always curried 
chicken with claret, always coffee afterwards. Those 
days — alas! How good it was to be six-and- 
twenty ! and what a perpetual feast was always pre- 
sent at breakfast and dinner ! 

Then came the cigar — it was before the days of 
the cigarette. Then a little game of ecarte for six- 
pences ; then a little reading ; then in the heat of 
the day a siesta ; at five o'clock we had tea ; then, 
the heat of the day over, we once more marched 
round this island, looked at the birds and the snakes, 
bathed on the coral reef and at sunset sat down to 
dinner, which was just like breakfast — but perhaps 
more so. After dinner my host would touch the 
guitar, which he did very pleasantly ; there would 
be another game of ecarte, a little more tobacco, a 
brandy and soda, and so to the friendly shelter of 
the mosquito curtains. The lonely life among the 
dead men and their ghosts ; the sea outside — a sea 
without a boat or a ship or a sail ever within sight, 
a sea filled with creatures ; the silence broken only by 
the screaming of the sea-birds and the lapping of 
the waves, made up a strange experience, one to be 
remembered. 

9 129 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

To return to the college staff; there was on it a 
man of curious antecedents and somewhat singular 
personality. To begin with, he never concerned 
himself in the least about money. He was a Scot 
of Aberdeen University ; a scholar in his own way, 
which was not the way of Cambridge ; a man of 
large reading in one Book. He was at this time — 
the sixties — about forty years of age. He never 
told me of his beginnings, which were, however, as 
I gathered from his knowledge of the shifts by 
which the poorer undergraduates of Aberdeen con- 
trived to live, of a humble character. His first 
important post was that of missionary for some 
Scotch society to Constantinople, or Asia Minor — 
somewhere among the Turks. This post he held 
for a few years, during which he travelled about 
among the islands and had a very good time. He 
made no converts, but he argued from the Book 
with any who would listen to him, either among 
Greeks or Mohammedans. Then two things hap- 
pened unto him : first, his conscience smote him, 
for drawing pay and writing reports about promising 
cases, days of enlargement, and signs of encourage- 
ment ; second, he found that he no longer believed 
in the letter of his creed or in the letter of the 
Book. Therefore he resigned his post and set forth 
on his travels about the world armed with his Book 
and nothing else. A Scotchman finds friends in 
every colony. This man had no fear ; he cast him- 
self upon a place, stayed there till he was tired, and 
then went on somewhere else. He always had the 

130 



SIR JV A LT ER B ES A N T 

Book in his hand ; he was principally engaged, as 
he himself said, " among the minor prophets." 
I wish I could remember all the things he told me, 
but I know that according to his own account he 
was always making discoveries to the prejudice of 
Verbal Inspiration. " Obsairve," he said to me 
once, "Micah" — or was it Habakkuk? — "begins 
by saying * The Lord spoke to me saying ' . . . 
Now look here; later on he says, * And then I 
knew that it was the Lord who spake to me.' So 
that the first words were only a formula." He grew 
tired of the place and shifted on. When I last 
heard of him he was running a school in some town 
near Melbourne. If he is still living, he must be 
eighty years of age. Heaven knows what discover- 
ies he has made among the minor prophets. 

Another member of the staff was a tall, thin Ger- 
man. He wore spectacles, he was horribly shy and 
nervous, spoke to no one, and lived all by himself 
in a little pavilion which was bedroom and keeping- 
room in one, for an Indian cook and all his goods. 
It was no use making overtures to him, for there 
was no response. He died of fever in 1867, and 
then I learned his history. He too had been a 
missionary ; his field had been India ; and like the 
Scotchman, he had found it impossible to pretend 
that he believed his creed ; he too had given it up. 
He was in English holy orders, and his great dread 
was that the bishop would find him out and learn 
his history. 

I wonder how many such missionaries there are. 
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AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

Once in Berlin I met a man of great learning and 
intelligence who gave me a similar experience. He 
had been in China for an American missionary- 
society of the strictest creed. He was sent into the 
interior, where he mastered Chinese literature and 
grew to understand — as I think — the Chinese 
character. He told strange tales of tribes and 
peoples — China is a country of which we know 
nothing. Among others he found a tribe of Jews 
who had preserved nothing, not even the sacred 
books of their religion, except one kosher rite with 
reference to food. He made no converts, and by 
his narrow creed all these millions were doomed to 
everlasting torments. Heavens ! what a creed ! 
Everlasting torment for these ignorant folk, these 
women, these children ! Are we monsters of cruelty 
that we should believe such things ^. Living by 
himself among them, he gradually cast away the 
dreadful horrors of his sect and ceased to believe in 
the creed which he was paid to preach. So he too 
came out of it. 

For a young man nowadays to reach the age of 
five-and-twenty or so, and to pass through the 
university, without coming across that common 
variety of man, the agnostic, would be impossible. 
Agnostics were much rarer forty or more years ago, 
but I made the acquaintance of two or three. One 
of them was an agnostic pure and simple, who 
thought it was his duty to learn such of the secrets 
of Nature as he could, and not to trouble himself 
about speculations as to the secrets of life, either 

132 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

before the cradle or after the grave — this was my 
friend Guthrie. Another was a more aggressive 

infidel, D. H , a Prussian, a tall, handsome young 

man, then about thirty years of age. He had been 
in the Russian Army Medical Service, and was in 
Sebastopol during the siege. I wish I had written 
down all the things he told me about that siege, 
and the infernal rain of shells that fell upon the 
place night and day, with the hospitals crammed, 
not only with the wounded, but with men by hun- 
dreds stricken with cholera. However, when one 
is young one listens and forgets to take note of 
things. He was, as I have said, an aggressive in- 
fidel. Guthrie only said that it was not his business 
to inquire into things called spiritual, and he went so 
far as to deny the power of the Padre to learn more 

about these things than anyone else. D. H 

went much farther ; he denied the whole of reli- 
gion, the miraculous history, the inspiration, the 
doctrine, everything. He denied without bitterness, 
without contempt, without pity, without hatred ; 
he simply denied and went his own way. He was 
as scientific a physician as one would find in the 
sixties. About the year 1866 he went away, and 
I learned presently that he had gone to Buenos 
Ayres, and that he had died of yellow fever, work- 
ing in the hospitals there. 

There was yet another kindly unbeliever of my 
acquaintance ; he was a medical man and a botanist, 
and in both capacities he had accompanied a certain 
High Church mission to Central Africa, being one 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

of the few survivors of an unlucky enterprise. He 
brought away with him a fever which never left him, 
and caused insomnia ; he would sometimes lie sleep- 
less for a week together, suffering prolonged tor- 
tures. In the intervals he sat up and poured out 
stories about his friends the missionaries ; he loved 
them, and he laughed at them. He went with 
Bishop Ryan to Madagascar, and brought back 
more stories, which I hope the good bishop never 
heard. He was sent on a mission to look into the 
sugar-cane culture in various places, and died at 
Rangoon. I have never met his equal for humour; 
he bubbled over with humour ; everything had its 
humorous side, and in his speech, or in his heart, 
there was never the slightest bitterness, or gall, or 
envy, or malice. 

Religion sat very lightly upon the good folks of 
the colony. The French and the mulattos went to 
church — they had a cathedral and a good many 
churches. The English had their cathedral, but 
they made very little use of it ; they had also two 
or three little churches in the country, but they 
were not much frequented. The Scotch, for their 
part, waking one day to the understanding that 
they had no church, built one, and imported a 
clergyman. On the first day of service they all at- 
tended, on the following Sunday there was no one ; 
and there has never been anyone since, except a few 
skippers and people of the port. There were also 
half-a-dozen missionaries. One of them founded a 
home for leprous children. Another rode about on 

134 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

a pony among the plantations, and said a word in 
season before dinner in the camps of the coolies — 
it was pleasant to read his report of "journeyings," 
and encouraging cases, and inquiries. The good 
man was not in the least a humbug ; he only con- 
tinued a perfunctory task, calling himself the sower 
of seed, long after the early enthusiasm of the out- 
set had been chilled and destroyed. Another mis- 
sionary of whom I have the liveliest recollection did 
gather round him a school of children, and a whole 
village, chiefly of negroes. He was a Swiss by 
birth, a cheery, hearty old man, very deaf, who 
talked in the simplest fashion to his flock. " Mes 
enfans," he would say, " qu'y en a qui fit cree le 
monde ? Le Pere Eternel — Qu'y en a qui fit 
sauve le monde ? Son fils, mes enfans — son fils. 
Et comment ce qui fait ? C'est moi qui va vous le 
dire," and so on, in Creole patois, while the shiny- 
faced blacks sat round him with open mouths. 
They never grew tired of hearing the old story, nor 
he of telling it. He made the Roman Catholics 
extremely jealous of his influence, especially over 
the children. Once one of their priests tried to 
draw the children away from his school. The 
pastor — he was a veritable pastor — sent him word 
that he would make a big gunny-bag and put him 
in it if he interfered. The Roman Catholic bishop, 
therefore, went to the Governor and laid a formal 
complaint and protest. "Did he really," asked the 

Governor, " threaten to put Father X in a 

gunny-bag?" "He did, indeed." "Then, my 

135 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

Lord Bishop," said the Governor, " I assure you 
that he is a man of his word ; and he ^11 do it ; he will 
indeed." Once I met him on the road, and inquired 
after his wife, who had been ill. I have said he was 
very deaf. He nodded his head several times, and 
shook me warmly by the hand. " My dear sir," 
he said, " I am always glad of a little conversa- 
tion with you. That is precisely the view concern- 
ing Moses and geology which I have always taken." 
I must get on with my gallery of colonials. 
Among them were the late Sir Edward Newton, 
afterwards Colonial Secretary of Jamaica ; Sir Wil- 
liam Marsh, Colonial Secretary of Hong Kong, 
Auditor-General of Cyprus, and Acting Governor 
of Hong Kong; Sir John Douglas, afterwards 
Lieutenant-Governor of Ceylon. The Governors 
in my time were Sir William Stevenson, who died 
there, and Sir Henry Barkly, who lived to a great 
age and died only the other day. Dr. Ryan was 
the Anglican Bishop, a good scholar, a man of many 
gifts, but somewhat narrow in his views. The 
Chief Justice was a Scotchman named Shand ; I 
believe that he was a good lawyer and a good judge. 
He was a cousin of one of the Scottish judges — 
Lord Shand. The Puisne judges were for the most 
part, if I remember aright, Creoles of the island. 
The master of the Supreme Court was a man who 
had the reputation of a good lawyer, and was also a 
gourmet. It was a great thing to dine with him, 
because he used to stay at home all day in anxious 
consultation with the cook ; it was informing to sit 

136 



SIR ^JLTER BESANT 

next to him at a public dinner, because he would 
discourse learnedly on the great art and science of 
dining. He once told me a little story about his 
own skill. " I was with a fishing-party," he said, 
" in Scotland, being then a young man. I met 
with a slight accident and sprained my ankle. ' Go 
without me,' I told my friends. ' This evening 
you shall have a surprise.' " He stopped with a 
sigh. " Twenty years after," he continued, " I was 
in Westminster Hall when a man accosted me. 

^ Mr. ,' he said. ' That, sir,' I told him, ' is my 

name, but for the moment I do not recollect yours.' 
* Never mind the name,' he said. ^ Eh ! man ! 
That surprise ! That saumon soup ! ' " 

We had among us a great light in meteorology — 
the place was a most important meteorological station 
— named Charles Meldrum ; he was made a Fellow 
of the Royal Society, to his infinite gratification. 
There was a merchant, also, whom I remember. 
He was already an old man in the sixties. His 
distinctive point was that he was a friend of 
Carlyle, and I heard the other day that he was 
dead at a very great age, having gone to Eccle- 
fechan to spend his last days. There was a charm- 
ing and delightful bank manager named Anderson, 
who in London as a young man had been one of 
an interesting circle of Bohemians — the later Bohe- 
mians. The circle is described in a novel or a 
series of chapters, called Friends of Bohemia^ by one 
of them, Edward M. Whitty. Anderson was a 
man of great culture ; an early worshipper of 

137 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

Browning, Holman Hunt, and Burne Jones. He 
himself once produced a small volume of Browning- 
esque verse, but somehow did not like to be re- 
minded of it. He came home and was made a 
Director of the Oriental Bank. He was also a 
member of the Savile Club, where I met him 
later. 

One more figure, this time one better known to 
fame. Among the younger merchants was a man 
named Dykes Campbell. He was one of those who 
have literary proclivities without any particular gifts 
of imagination or expression. Most men of this 
kind try the impossible and produce bad verse and 
bad fiction. Campbell did nothing of the kind ; he 
kept up his reading, he went on with his work, and 
at the age of forty or so he found he could retire 
with a competence. Then he came to England 
and devoted himself for ten years to the investiga- 
tion of everything relating to Coleridge ; and he 
ended by producing the best life of Coleridge that 
we have, and the best, I suppose, that we shall ever 
have. So this simple colonial merchant has made 
an enduring mark in the literature of the century. 
It is really a remarkable story. Campbell did 
nothing else worth mentioning. He wrote a little 
towards the end of his life for the Athenaum^ but he 
formed no other project of serious work, and he 
died at the age of fifty-five. 

On the intellectual side of the colony one need 
not linger long; nor need we press the matter too 
hardly. For without stimulus, without papers and 

138 



SIR fVJLTER BESANT 

journals, without new books, and without learned 
bodies, how can there be any intellectual life ? 
The newspapers of the colony were contemptible ; 
there was a so-called " Royal Society," which had 
a museum and a curator, but there was no life in 
it ; there was a Meteorological Society, which had 
a committee, and a secretary, Meldrum, but the 
secretary alone did all the work, which was, as I 
have said, of great importance. There were no 
lectures, partly because no one would go out in the 
evening except to dinner, while no one would go to 
a lecture before dinner, and partly because every- 
body knew everybody else, and could get any in- 
formation that he might want without the trouble 
of going to a lecture. A few private persons had 
small collections of books, but there was not much 
reading. There was a circulating library, which was 
very poorly supported ; there was a subscription 
library, which fell to pieces, and what became of 
the books I could never learn. The college had a 
library containing a very fine collection of historical 
works. 

For my own part, as a full quarter of the year 
was vacation, I naturally fell back upon work. In 
fact I did a great deal of work of a desultory kind. 
I filled up many important gaps. The most impor- 
tant part of my reading was in French. My friend 
Leon Doyen introduced me to the study of old 
French, and gave me the key ; he also lent me cer- 
tain books of old French. Then I found a man 
who had a complete edition of Balzac, and another 

139 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

who had a complete edition of Georges Sand. I 
worked through all these books. And I found 
another man with a collection of old numbers of the 
Revue des Deux Mondes. I do not think that any 
English magazine contains so many articles of en- 
during interest as this review. And I was writing 
all the time. I wrote essays for the most part, 
which have long since been torn up. In truth I 
was not in the least precocious, and I spent these 
years in getting control over my pen, which at first 
ran along of its own accord, discursive, rambling, 
and losing its original purpose. No one would 
believe the trouble I had in making the pen a ser- 
vant instead of a master; in other words, in forcing 
the brain to concentration. I had by this time quite 
abandoned higher mathematics, which from this 
point of view was a loss, because there is nothing 
that fixes and concentrates the attention more than 
mathematics. I found, however, that the writing 
of verse was useful in the same direction, and 1 
wrote a good deal of verse, none of which have I 
ever ventured to publish. 

I also wrote a novel. It was a long novel, in- 
tended for the then orthodox three volumes. I 
wrote it with great enjoyment, and I persuaded 
myself that it was good. Finally I sent it to Eng- 
land and had it submitted to a publisher. His 
verdict was in plain language — "Won't do; but 
has promise." When I got home I received back 
the MS., and I agreed with the verdict; it was a 
happy thing for me that the MS. was not published. 

140 



SIR tVALTER BESANT 

The papers lay in my chambers for a long time 
afterwards in a corner covered with dust. They got 
upon my nerves. I used to see a goblin sitting on 
the pile ; an amorphous goblin, with tearful eyes, 
big head, shapeless body, long arms and short legs. 
He would wag his head mournfully. " Don't make 
another like me," he said. " Not like me. I 
couldn't bear to meet another like me." At last 
I plucked up courage and burned the whole pile. 
Then my goblin vanished and I saw him no more. I 
expected him some time after, if only to thank me 
for not making another like him. But he came 
not, and I have often wondered whither that goblin 
went for rest and consolation. 

It was, I think, in 1864 that I became aware of 
an increased tendency to a form of melancholia 
which made me uneasy at first. Gradually the 
symptom became a burden to me. I suppose it 
was caused partly by over-work; partly by worry 
on account of my exasperating chief; and partly by 
the monotony of a climate which was sometimes 
much too hot, and sometimes a little too wet, but 
never cold. Some men are so constituted that they 
enjoy this eternal summer ; some cannot stand it. 
I was one of the latter class. As the thing grew 
worse, I took advice of my German friend. He 
advised an immediate change of scenery, if not of 
climate. Accordingly I took the first opportunity 
of a vacation to visit the Island of Reunion, for- 
merly called Bourbon. I recorded my impressions 
of the place in Once a Week (see Once a Week^ 

141 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

October i6th and October 23rd, 1869), a circum- 
stance to which I shall refer again. 

My residence in Mauritius of six years was full 
of experiences. In 1862 we had an attack of chol- 
era, not, happily, very severe nor of long duration. 
It carried off, however, a good many whites. It 
was the second attack that had visited the island, 
that of 1854, its predecessor, being far more virulent 
and lasting much longer. There was a hurricane 
one year, which wasted the whole island and de- 
stroyed an immense quantity of canes — but how 
sweet and pure was the air of the place after it ! 
On another occasion a waterspout burst in the hills 
round the town, and floods of water five or six feet 
deep rushed through the streets, tearing up the cot- 
tages of wattle-and-daub, washing the town, and 
drowning more people than were ever counted. 

The last experience was that of a city in a plague. 
In 1866-67 broke out for the first time the 
Mauritius fever. Up to that time the place was 
considered as healthy as any island or country in 
the temperate zone. There were no endemic dis- 
orders, and everybody lived to a green old age. 

Now my friend D. H , when he went away in 

1865, gave utterance to a medical prophecy. He 
said, "You have 250,000 coolies on this little 
island, without counting negroes, Malagasy men, 
Malays, and Chinese. None of them will obey 
any sanitary rules ; the soil of the town, and even 
that of the cane-fields, is saturated. Sooner or later, 
there will be a great outbreak of fever or plague." 

142 



SIR IVJLTER BESANT 

This prophecy was fulfilled to the letter. The 
fever appeared; it ran through the Indian camps 
and the negro villages with frightful rapidity ; it 
attacked white as well as coloured people in certain 
districts, especially low-lying or swampy places. It 
was not sporadic ; it caught whole families and 
carried them off. For instance, the railway people 
wanted a party of coolies to be taken from one 
place to another. The sirdar who was entrusted 
with the business brought them, with their wives 
and children, to the town and lodged them in an 
old room formerly used for slaves. This done, he 
was taken with the fever and died. Then all the 
coolies were taken with it ; no one knew they were 
in Port Louis, no doctor went near them, and they 
all died where they lay. All the quinine in the 
place was exhausted; that which had been ordered 
from Europe was by mistake sent out round the 
Cape instead of by the overland route ; what there 
was sold for ;^3o, and more, an ounce. 

The number of deaths rose to three hundred a 
day for the whole island ; in Port Louis alone to 
one hundred and more ; the shops were closed ; the 
streets were silent; the funerals went on all day 
long in the Roman Catholic churches, and in their 
cemetery the priests stood over o^^n fosses communes, 
saying the last prayers for the dead without inter- 
mission as the coffins were brought in and laid side 
by side. 

My residence was then about ten miles from 
town, on a plateau 1,200 feet above the level of the 

143 



A UT O B I O G RA P H T OF 

sea. We had some fever, but not much ; our 
servants' camp contained a few patients, and we 
doctored them ourselves with good results. It was 
a strange experience. There were dreadful stories 
of suffering. The Chinese who had escaped the 
cholera were laid low with the fever, and of the 
mulattos no one knew who had died or how many. 
When the canes were cut, dead bodies were found 
among them of poor wretches who had crept in to 
die at peace under these waving plumes of grey. 
When all was over it was found that the savings 
bank had ^30,000 lying in its hands which were 
never claimed ; the investors with all their families 
had been wiped out. The worst was just over 
when I went away in June 1867. But fever still 
lingered, and is now endemic as one of the condi- 
tions of life in the colony as much as it is in Sierra 
Leone and on the West Coast of Africa.^ 

^ A Fever Inquiry Commission was appointed by Sir Henry Barkly 
in 1867, and a sub-committee reported to this commission in 1868 
upon the epidemic. The sub-committee decided that the epidemic 
was one of malarious fever, showing itself under various forms, and 
pointed out that on December 31st, 1866, when the epidemic was 
approaching, the number of immigrants from India alone had reached 
the enormous figure of 246,049. The report confirms Sir Walter 
Besant's recollections. Estimating the population of Port Louis at 
80,000 in 1867, it shows that the death-rate during the year amounted 
to 274 per thousand. The greatest mortality in one day, April 27th, 
was 234. It was established that many hundreds of lives were lost 
during the epidemic through the want of cleanliness and overcrowding 
in the Indian and creole camps. 



144 



SIR tVALTER BESJNT 



Chapter VIII 

ENGLAND AGAIN : THE PALESTINE EXPLORATION 

FUND 

WITH a year's furlough on half-pay, I 
bade farewell to my friends. I was in no 
hurry to get home, and therefore took a 
passage by the Cape steamer. We were connected 
with Cape Town by a service of two or three little 
steamers. One of them had just gone down in a 
storm while lying in harbour at the Cape, a fact 
which, had I known it, would probably have sent 
me home by the shorter and safer route. But it 
was a chance which might never offer itself again of 
seeing the Cape. 

So we started in our cockle-shell. There was no 
place for stores of dead stock, no ice-rooms or any- 
thing of that sort ; we had our sheep and our 
poultry stowed away in pens somewhere in the 
bows. We started with very fine weather, though 
in mid-winter, for South Africa ; we put in at Dur- 
ban, but not to land ; we skirted along the coast 
then called No Man's Land, where we saw the 
Caffres walking about; and we landed at Port 
Elizabeth, where we had time to look round. A 
man who could talk Caffre carried me off to show 
me a kraal. We found Port Elizabeth provided 
»° 145 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

with fine stone warehouses, waiting for the trade of 
the future. 

That evening it began to blow. Off the Cape 
of Good Hope — formerly the Cape of Torments 

— the wind is believed to blow harder and the sea 
to rise higher than in any other part of the globe. 
We proved that this belief is well founded. The 
night was unendurable in the cabin ; two of us 
spent it in the small smoking-saloon for'ard, 
wrapped in a plaid. In the middle of the night a 
huge sea broke over the ship, smashed in the doors 
of the saloon and carried them out to sea; very 
luckily it did not carry us out to sea with the doors. 
When the day broke at last we found that all our 
live stock — our sheep and fowls, with their pens 

— had been carried away. The waves were moun- 
tainous. Presently there was a great shouting and 
whistling ; the sea had torn up the engine room 
hatchway, and put out four of the five fires ; a 
tarpaulin was rigged on hastily; but we had but 
one fire left for a time. 

All that day, with the other man, my compan- 
ion of the smoking-saloon, we clung to the davits 
watching the waves. Every time we rose to the 
top of a wave, our hearts sank at looking into 
the surging valley below ; when we were down, 
the mountain before us seemed as if it must 
swamp and sink us. This lasted for four days 
and four nights. It was a brave and a staunch little 
ship, and when the gale at last abated it was 
found that we had been driven two hundred and 

146 



SIR tV A L T E R B ES A N T 

fifty miles south of our course. Since we had 
come out of the storm in safety, it was a small 
thing that we had nothing but pork in various 
forms to live upon until we got to Cape Town. 
The delay caused us to lose our steamer for South- 
ampton. I, for one, however, was quite content to 
stay a fortnight at Cape Town and to look around. 

I suppose the place is altered in thirty years. In 
1867 it was a sleepy, pleasant, sunshiny town, with 
lovely gardens. There was a college, and there was 
a House of Commons, and there were the vine- 
yards and the wine-making to see. There were 
plenty of people at the hotel. I called upon Mr. 
Southey, the Minister; he showed me the first 
diamond ever found in South Africa, a thing as 
big as the top of a child's little finger. I attended a 
debate at the House, and was pleased to observe Mr. 
Southey's patience with the farmers who were the 
members. First, he stated his case, quite clearly ; 
then the members rose one after the other and 
stated that they understood nothing; Mr. Southey 
stated it again, in other words, quite patiently ; 
again they got up and betrayed profound misun- 
derstanding ; a third time he put the case, always 
with patience and without temper, and then they 
began to understand. 

In the evening there was always a gathering of 
the members at the hotel. Those who had come 
from England talked about the old country with 
affection. One of them, an old gentleman of 
eighty-four, who afterwards danced a hornpipe to 

147 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

show his agility, said that he came from Fetter 
Lane. I asked him if he had ever met Charles 
Lamb. He had not, he said, but he knew Samuel 
Lamb the butcher. The Afrikander Bond in these 
days had not been invented, and if the Dutch had 
begun to dream of sweeping the English into the 
sea, they had kept their dreams to themselves, so far 
as I know. It was winter, but the sun was pleas- 
ant, and the air was warm, and I left after my 
brief stay with real regret. We had a delightful 
voyage, with no bad weather at either end. We 
saw Ascension and landed at St. Helena, having 
time to drive up to Longwood and see Napoleon's 
last residence. I should say that there are worse 
places to live in than St. Helena ; it is full of 
flowers and the trade breeze is always cool. 

And so, after six years and a half, I landed again 
at Southampton. The time had completely changed 
the whole current of my thoughts — my views of 
society, order, religion, everything. I went out 
with my head full of university and ecclesiastical 
prejudices. I believe that I lost them all. Gentle 
reader, a man who has had six years of life in a 
colony such as Mauritius, where all kinds of men 
are always coming and going, where one meets 
men of every station and every country, where 
life is carried on under conditions which cannot 
exist in England, may become anything you please 
— but if he takes to literature, he can never be- 
come a prig ; nor, if he takes to politics, can he 
ever become the advocate of a ruling caste ; nor 

148 



SIR TVALTER BESANT 

can he pursue the old narrow views of ecclesiasti- 
cal religion. He becomes more human ; he has 
learned at least the lesson that in humanity there is 
no caste that is common, and none that is unclean. 
The unclean and the common are individual, and 
not general. It is a simple lesson, but it was — oh ! 
— so very much wanted in the sixties. 

Another thing that I found, and remember, is 
that in the colonies there are so many good fel- 
lows. There is less struggle, less posing, less in- 
triguing, less serving of personal interest than we 
find at home ; less envy, less jealousy, less malice ; 
more friendliness, more hospitality, more kind- 
liness ; and less caste. Let me be always thankful 
for my colonial experience. 

I began life again at the age of thirty-one. My 
capital was a pretty extensive knowledge acquired 
by voracious and indiscriminate reading. I could 
write, I knew, pretty well, having got over that 
difficulty of which I have spoken. I had a special 
branch of knowledge, in which I was not likely at 
that time to find many rivals, though since then 
the enormous increase of writers has caused an in- 
crease of competitors in every branch, including old 
French literature. What would happen I knew 
not, but of these things I was resolved — I would 
not go back to the Royal College of Mauritius, 
nor would I undertake a mastership in any English 
school. I was never a teacher to the manner born, 
nor did I ever take really kindly to the work. As 

149 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

regards ways and means, I had a whole twelvemonth 
on half-pay to look about me, and I had a few — a 
very few — hundreds in my pocket. 

A man who goes away at four-and-twenty and 
comes back at one-and-thirty speedily discovers that 
his old place among his friends is filled up. In 
seven years they have gone off on different roads, 
they have made new associates, the old ties are 
broken. Moreover, in whatever direction such a 
man after seven years' absence turns, he is met by 
the opposition and the competition of those younger 
than himself, who are backing up each other. Be- 
sides, it is felt that a man who goes out to a colony 
ought — I know not why — to remain there. Un- 
der similar circumstances, it would be now much 
more difficult for the returned colonial to make an 
opening than it was thirty years ago. I understood 
that my opening was to be made — somehow or 
other, as yet I knew not how — by literature. It 
was a resolution which one had to keep to oneself 
Everybody ridiculed it ; an attempt to live by lit- 
erature was considered certain dependence and beg- 
gary ; indeed, there were examples in plenty to 
warrant that prejudice. Thirty years ago we were 
not far from the memory of literary Bohemia, which 
used to be freely painted in colours so rosy, yet was 
a country so full of privation, debt, duns, and de- 
pendence. I had no intention whatever of joining 
the Bohemians. I say that I did not quite know 
what I should do ; but I was resolved that I would 
not become a publisher's hack ; that I would not 

ISO 



SIR PFJLTER BESANT 

hang about publishers' offices and beg for work; 
nor write introductions and edit new editions at five 
guineas the job with a preface, an introductory life, 
notes, and an index thrown in. I meant to get on 
by means of literature and live an independent life. 
Understanding, as I do now, the difficulties which 
lay in the way before me, I am amazed when I con- 
sider the absolute confidence with which I regarded 
the future. 

My furlough I spent in reading and in travelling 
about England, of which I had seen, hitherto, so 
very little. As regards serious work, I put together 
my papers, notes, and studies, and wrote a book on 
Early French Poetry, which was published In the 
autumn of 1868. The book did not profess to be 
a history ; it was simply a collection of separate 
studies. It did as well as one could have expected 
from the nature of the subject ; it Introduced me to 
the world as a specialist who could discourse pleas- 
antly on a subject hitherto treated, if at all in this 
country, by Dryasdust — I may be permitted to say 
so much In my own praise. There was an edition 
of 750 copies printed, of which a good many were 
satisfactorily disposed of. The arrangement was 
that which Is humorously called "half profits," and 
my share was lis. Sd. or 8j. i i^., or some such 
great sum. Of course I now understand what it 
meant; but the amount of profit in such a case 
mattered nothing — the advantage to me was enor- 
mous. If my publishers had made the condition 
that the lis. %d. or the 8j. 11 d. should be their own, 

151 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

I should have accepted their terms joyfully for the 
sake of the introduction to the public. 

In June 1868 a great piece of luck came to me 
in the shape of a post as secretary to a society. It 
was exactly what I wanted ; the salary was sufficient 
for bread and cheese, the hours were not excessive, 
leaving plenty of time for my own work, and the 
associations were eminently respectable. It was the 
Society for the Systematic and Scientific Exploration 
of Palestine. Thomson, Archbishop of York, was 
our chairman ; our general committee contained a 
most imposing list of names ; and on our executive 
committee were James Glaisher, F.R.S., afterwards 
chairman; W. S. W. Vaux, the numismatist; Canon 
Tristram, F.R.S. ; Hepworth Dixon, the editor of 
the Athen<£um — he died at Christmas 1879 5 James 
Fergusson, F.R.S., the writer on architectural 
history; J. L. Donaldson, professor of architecture ; 
William Longman, publisher ; Professor Hayter 
Lewis, architect, and successor of Professor Donald- 
son ; Walter Morrison, M.P. ; Sir George Grove, 
afterwards Director of the College of Music ; and 
the Rev. F. W. Holland, who spent most of his 
holidays in the peninsula of Sinai. 

For eighteen years I continued to be the paid 
secretary of this society. During that time were 
conducted the excavations at Jerusalem by Captain 
(now Sir Charles) Warren ; the survey of Western 
Palestine by Captain (now Colonel) Conder and 
Captain Kitchener (now Lord Kitchener) ; and the 
Geological Survey of Palestine by Professor Hull, 

152 



SIR WALTER B ES A N T 

F.R.S. — besides the Archaeological Survey by M. 
Clermont Ganneau. The work of the society has, 
in fact, completely changed the whole of the old 
geography, topography, and archaeology of the 
Holy Land ; it has restored to the Temple its true 
grandeur, and to Jerusalem its ancient splendour ; it 
has shown the country, formerly populous and 
highly cultivated, dotted over with strong and 
great cities — Tiberias alone, which had been called 
a little fishing-village, has been proved to have been 
a city with a wall as great in extent as the wall of 
the City of London. The work brought me into 
personal contact with a great number of men em- 
inent in many ways. Among them I may mention 
the philanthropic Lord Shaftesbury, Sir Moses 
Montefiore, Professor Pusey, A. J. Beresford-Hope, 
General Charles Gordon, Laurence Oliphant, Sir 
Charles Wilson, Sir Charles Warren, Lord Kitch- 
ener, and Sir Richard Burton, to say nothing of 
many bishops, scholars, and archaeologists. 

I remained, as I said, as paid secretary for about 
eighteen years, and as honorary secretary I have 
remained ever since. During my official work as 
paid secretary I made many friends by means of 
the society. First and foremost among them was 
Edward Palmer, Lord Almoner's Professor of Ara- 
bic in the University of Cambridge. That great 
linguist and fine Oriental scholar explored for the 
society, with the late W. T. Tyrwhitt Drake, the 
Desert of the Wanderings. He could enter into 
and understand every man's brain ; he had that 

153 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

quick sympathyj that feminine perception of things, 
which make the thought-reader. No man that I 
ever met with in this my earthly pilgrimage has 
been able so profoundly to impress his personality 
upon his friends. He was a great scholar, yet had 
none of the scholarly dignity ; he mostly sat telling 
stories and bubbling over with natural mirth. He 
was always doing strange and unexpected things. 
Once the whole town was placarded with posters, 
half in English, half in Arabic; again. Palmer in- 
vented a new and surprising trick which was brought 
out at the old Polytechnic ; on another occasion he 
presented his friends with a volume of serious 
poetry ; then with a burlesque ; then he translated 
the Koran, dictating it in a sort of monotone, as if 
he were reading the original in a mosque. In ap- 
pearance he was a remarkable being : a little man 
with a large head, curiously delicate features, a hand 
like a woman's, eyes unnaturally bright, brown hair, 
and a long silky beard. When he was eighteen, 
being then in a City office, he was sent home to die 
of consumption ; but he did not die; he diverted 
his thoughts from death by learning Arabic and 
Persian, but he always preserved the delicate com- 
plexion. He suffered from asthma, which hardly 
ever left him. 

Till the age of thirty-eight or so he lived at 
Cambridge, lecturing, reading, teaching, examining, 
and picking up new languages every day. Then a 
great change came upon his life. Through the 
failure of a cousin he became involved to the extent 

154 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

of some ^1,500. He had not a penny; moreover, 
his wife was living in France — or rather dying in 
France — which obliged him to keep up a separate 
establishment and to be running over to Paris con- 
tinually to look after her. He made an arrange- 
ment with his creditors. He assigned to them his 
fellowship and professorship — about ^400 a year 
— until they should be paid in full, and he came to 
London penniless, but full of confidence. He be- 
came a leader-writer for the Standard, and there was 
never any further trouble about money except that 
he always spent everything as fast as it came in. In 
1882, when the trouble with Egypt began, and the 
Suez Canal was threatened, he undertook for the 
Government a journey in the Sinai Desert in order 
to keep the Arabs quiet. He went out alone ; dis- 
guised as a Syrian Effendi, he travelled through the 
desert in the height of the summer heat ; he saw 
sheikh after sheikh, and made them promise not to 
harm the canal ; he arrived safely at Suez, his mis- 
sion accomplished. He had, however, to take 
some money to his new allies, and was treacher- 
ously murdered by a party of Arabs sent from 
Cairo for the purpose. The murder, like every- 
thing else that belongs to Palmer's history, had in 
it all the elements of the picturesque, the weird, and 
the wonderful. The party were caught in the 
night, and all night long the captors discussed what 
should be done with their prisoners. They were 
afraid of murdering them for some reason ; prob- 
ably Palmer's guides filled them with terror, telling 

155 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

them how great a man was the Effendi Abdullah, 
what a power among the Sinai Arabs, what a scholar. 
But at last their obedience to their chiefs overcame 
terror. They ran upon Palmer with swords, and 
threw his bleeding body over the crags and rocks 
into the valley below. And so they treated his 
companions Gill and Charrington. Sir Charles 
Warren, sent out for the purpose, hunted down 
and hanged every one of the murderers. Palmer's 
portrait hangs in the hall of St. John's College, 
Cambridge, but I fear that his history is no longer 
remembered by the undergraduates. 

Let me give here a certain elegy which I wrote for 
the Rabelais Club of which Palmer was a member: — 

THE DEATH OF THE SHEIKH ABDULLAH. 

** The blood-red dawn rolls westward ; crag and steep 
Welcome the splendid day with purple glow ; 
Through the dim gorges shape and outline creep. 
And deeper seem the black depths far below. 

"Earth hath no wilder place her lands among; 
Here is no cool green spot, no pleasant thing ; 
No shade of lordly bough, no sweet birds' song. 
No gracious meadows, and no flowers of spring. 

** The eagle builds his eyrie on these peaks ; 
Below the jackal and hyena prowl : 
No gentle creature here her pasture seeks. 
But fiery serpents lurk, and vulture foul. 

" I see a figure, where the rock sinks sheer 
Into a gorge too deep for noontide sun; 
Above, the sky of morning pure and clear — 
Others are there, but I see only one. 
156 



SIR fFJLTER BESANT 

" In Syrian robes, like some old warrior free. 
After fierce fight a captive, so he stands. 
Gazing his last — sweet are the skies to see. 

And sweet the sunshine breaking o'er the lands. 

"Then, while the light of wrath prophetic fills 
His awful eyes, he hurls among his foes — 
Wild echoes ringing round the 'frighted hills — 
A flaming prophecy of helpless woes. 

" Yea; like a Hebrew Prophet doth he tell 

Of swift revenge and death and women's moan; 
And stricken babes and burning pains of hell. 
Then each man's traitor heart fell cold as stone. 

" And through their strong limbs fearful tremblings crept. 

And brown cheeks paled, and down dropped every head; 
Then, with a last fierce prophecy he leaped. 

My God ! Abdullah — Palmer — art thou dead ?" 

A society such as the Palestine Exploration Fund 
naturally attracts all the cranks, especially the relig- 
ious cranks. There was one man who was a mixture 
of geographical science and of religious crankiness. 
He claimed to be the son of the founder of the 
Plymouth Brethren ; he had vast ideas on the 
rebuilding of Babylon, that it might once more 
become the geographical centre of European and 
Asiatic trade. As a matter of fact we only have to 
consider the position of Babylon in order to under- 
stand that when the country is taken over by a 
European Power, and the valley of the Euphrates 
is once more drained and cultivated, that great city 
will again revive. But with this insight he mixed 

157 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

up a queer religion, in which Nimrod played a 
great part. He would talk about Nimrod as long 
as I allowed him. And then I heard of a grand 
project in which he was concerned. It was nothing 
less than the cutting of a sea-canal from the northern 
end of the Gulf of Akaba to the south of the Dead 
Sea ; this canal would flood the Jordan valley and 
create a large central lake over that valley extending 
for some miles on either hand. Then, with a short 
railway across Galilee, there would be a new water- 
way, with possible extension by rail and canal to 
Persia and India. The project was seriously con- 
sidered; a meeting was held in the office of the 
Palestine Exploration Fund, at which the then 
Duke of Sutherland and others consulted Sir 
Charles Warren and Captain Conder on the 
possibility of constructing the canal. The duke 
could not, or would not, be persuaded that a 
cutting for so many miles of seven hundred feet 
deep at least would be practically impossible. I 
think there must have been some political business 
at the back of the project, of which, however, 
nothing more was heard. 

The man who could read all ancient inscriptions 
by means of the original alphabet, entirely con- 
structed of equilateral triangles, was amusing at first 
but became tedious. The man who saw " Nature 
Worship," to use the common euphemism, in 
everything ancient also became tedious. The man 
who wanted the society to send out an expedition 
to Ararat for the recovery of the Ark, was extremely 

^58 



SIR JVALTER BESANT 

interesting. The Ark, it seems, is lying embedded 
in ice and snoV on the top of that mountain ; all 
we have to do is to blow up the ice with dynamite, 
when the Ark will be revealed. The man who 
knew where to lay his hand upon the Ark of the 
Covenant, if we would send him out for the purpose, 
was perhaps a knave, perhaps a crank. But crank- 
ery and knavery sometimes overlap. The man who 
knew where the monks buried their treasure on the 
fall of the Latin Kingdom was also perhaps knave and 
perhaps crank. He had got hold of an Italian book 
about buried treasure in Palestine, and believed it. 

Then there was a man who had a road upon his 
mind. It is a road in Eastern Palestine, which has 
milestones upon it, and is a well constructed road, 
and starts right into the desert. Where does it go ? 
He was always inquiring about this road ; and in- 
deed it is a very curious thing that the road, men- 
tioned by Gibbon, should have been so carefully 
constructed, and one would really like to know 
where it goes. The man who could prove that 
Mount Sinai is not Hor and that the survey of the 
Sinai peninsula was therefore a useless piece of work, 
wrote a book about it, and so relieved his mind. 
He was an interesting man ; he had been an army 
surgeon in the Crimea ; then he became a barrister, 
and got into notice by defending the prisoner charged 
with the Clerkenwell explosion ; then he became 
a leader-writer for the Morning Post^ with this fad 
about Mount Sinai to keep him in a wholesome 
condition of excitement and interest. I know not 

159 



AUTOBIOGRAPHT OF 

how many converts he made, but I think, for my 
own part, that he was perhaps right. 

In the course of my work at the Palestine Ex- 
ploration Society I was connected officially with one 
great discovery and one great fraud. The discovery 
was that of the Moabite Stone — an event which 
forced the world to acknowledge the historical char- 
acter of part, at least, of the Old Testament. The 
discovery was made by a German missionary em- 
ployed by an English society. Being in English 
employment, he communicated his discovery to the 
German Court. At the same time M. Clermont 
Ganneau, then chancelier of the French Consulate, 
heard of it, and Warren heard of it. Negotiations 
were briskly begun ; but the Arabs, in the end, 
thinking that it was a magical stone, since so many 
Europeans wanted to get it, broke it to pieces. 
Then Warren procured squeezes of the inscription, 
which were sent home. These precious documents 
we had photographed. The treasurer of the society, 
Mr. Walter Morrison, kindly shared with me the 
task of watching the work in the photographer's 
studio, because we were afraid of letting the docu- 
ments go out of our sight and our hands. When 
we had our photographs, the squeezes became less 
valuable. We sent copies round to the best known 
Hebrew scholars, and all began to write books and 
monographs. We found a great quantity of things 
in the course of our excavations and our surveys, 
but never again did we make so splendid a " find" 
as that of the Moabite Stone. 

1 60 



SIR WALTER BESJNT 

Some years later — I think about 1877 — a cer- 
tain Shapira, a Polish Jew converted to Christianity 
but not to good works, came to England and called 
upon me mysteriously. He had with him, he said, 
a document which would simply make students of 
the Bible and Hebrew scholars reconsider their 
ways ; it would throw a flood of light upon the 
Pentateuch ; and so on. The man was a good 
actor ; he was a man of handsome presence, tall, 
with fair hair and blue eyes ; not the least like 
the ordinary Polish Jew, and with an air of modest 
honesty which carried one away. What was his 
discovery ? First he would not tell me. Then I 
said that he might go away. So he told me. It 
was nothing less than a contemporary copy of the 
book of Deuteronomy written on parchment. A 
contemporary copy ! Could I see it ? I might 
see a piece, which he pulled out of his pocket-book. 
It was written in fine black ink, as fresh after three 
thousand years as when it was laid on ; and in the 
Phcenician characters of the Moabite Stone. It had 
been preserved, he told me, through being deposited 
in a perfectly dry cave in Moab. Then I suggested 
that he should make this discovery known to the 
world. He consented, after a while, to reveal it 
to two persons. Dr. Ginsburg, the great Hebrew 
scholar, and Captain Conder, the Surveyor of 
Western Palestine. I undertook to invite them 
to come on the morrow. But Ginsburg considered 
that the invitation included his friends, and so the 
whole of the British Museum, so to speak, with 
II 161 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

all the Hebrew scholars in London, turned up, 
and with them Conder. Shapira unfolded his MS. 
amid such excitement as is very seldom exhibited 
by scholars. The exposition lasted about three 
hours ; then Shapira tore off a piece of the pre- 
cious document to show the nature of the parch- 
ment. It was, as one of the company remarked, 
wonderfully modern in appearance, and a remark- 
able illustration of the arts as known and practised 
in the time of Moses. Then Shapira withdrew ; 
and after a little conversation the learned company 
separated. As they went out, one of them, a pro- 
fessor of Hebrew, exclaimed with conviction, " This 
is one of the few things which could not be a for- 
gery and a fraud !" 

There were left with me Captain Conder and 
William Simpson, of the Illustrated London News. 
Said Simpson dryly, " He values his MS. at a 
million. Of course he could spare the value of the 
bit he tore off, I suppose it is worth ^500." So 
he chuckled and went his way. Simpson entertained 
a low view of the worthy Shapira, Christian convert. 
Then Conder, who had been very quiet, only putting 
in a little question from time to time, spoke. " I 
observe," he said, " that all the points objected to 
by German critics have vanished in this new and 
epoch-making trouvaille. The geography is not 
confused, and Moses does not record his own 
death." 

" Well ? " I asked, for more was in his face. 

"And I know, I believe, all the caves of Moab, 

162 



SIR IVALTER BESANT 

and they are all damp and earthy. There is not a 
dry cave in the country." 

"Then you think ? " 

" Precisely." 

Clermont Ganneau, who was in Paris, came over 
to see the precious MS. A few days passed ; the 
learned divines and professors were hanging over 
the MS. preparing their commentaries. Ganneau 
asked permission to see the MS., and then all the 
fat was in the fire. " I know," he said, " how this 
MS, was obtained. The parchment is cut from the 
margins of Hebrew manuscripts, some of them of 
considerable antiquity. The writing is that of yes- 
terday." 

Alas ! that was so. That was exactly what had 
been done. Shapira received his MS. back without 
any offer of a hundred pounds, not to speak of a 
million. It was too much for the poor man ; the 
work had cost him so much trouble, he had reck- 
oned with so much faith on the success of his care- 
ful and learned forgery, that his mind became 
unhinged. He hanged himself. I believe that the 
disappointment of the Hebrew scholars, who had 
begun learned books on the newly discovered text, 
was pitiful. Shapira left with me, and it was never 
reclaimed, the leaden cover of Samson's coffin. Yes, 
nothing less than the coffin of Samson Agonistes, 
Samson the strong, Samson the victim of woman's 
wiles. Shapira said that he was not absolutely 
certain about it ; he should be most sorry to mis- 
lead ; the truth was that he could not be sure ; but 

163 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

there was on the leaden roll the name, nowhere else 
occurring in Hebrew literature : the actual name of 
Samson in Phoenician characters — plain for all to 
read. 

There were many more days of discovery and 
murmured discovery ; arrivals of drawings, copies 
of inscriptions, statuettes, and other things, all of 
which kept that quiet office alive. Conder discov- 
ered old towns and sites by fifties ; Ganneau found 
the head of the Roman statue set up by the Romans 
on the site of the Holy of Holies ; he also found 
the stone of the Temple warning strangers not to 
cross the barrier on pain of death, Gordon found, 
as he thought, the true place of the Crucifixion ; 
and there was always running on the old contro- 
versy about the sacred site. For my part I have 
always agreed with Conder that when a site is ac- 
cepted by tradition common to Christian, Jew, and 
Moslem, that site is probably correct ; the excava- 
tions and discoveries made on the site of the tradi- 
tional Holy Sepulchre continually furnished new 
arguments in favour of that tradition, and history 
seems to me to be entirely on that side. 

As we wanted as much history as we could get, 
I created a small society among the people interested 
in these things for the translation and publication 
of the ancient pilgrimages. We had about one 
hundred and twenty members. One translation 
was done by Aubrey Stewart, late Fellow of Trinity 
College, Cambridge; Guy L' Estrange, Conder, and 
one or two more helped ; Sir Charles Wilson anno- 

164 



SIR SALTER B ES A NT 

tated the books. In about ten years we accom- 
plished the task that we had set before us in our 
original prospectus — we had translated the writings 
of all the old pilgrims. I am quite sure that no 
society ever before did so much with so small an 
income. To be sure, we had no office clerks to 
pay ; and our work was mostly gratuitous. I have 
always been proud of my share in creating this sub- 
sidiary society and in producing this series. The 
work will certainly never be done again. There 
were so few copies — not more than two hundred, 
I believe — that our labours are practically unknown 
except to those who study the topography, the geog- 
raphy, and the buildings of the Holy Land. 

The work of the main society all this time was 
going on quietly. I had organised a system of 
local societies all over the country, and had sent 
lecturers to explain what we were doing. Conse- 
quently I was enabled to supply our party in Pales- 
tine with ample funds. The survey cost in round 
figures £100 a month ; and when Clermont Gan- 
neau went out for us on a special archaeological 
mission, he wanted about £100 a month more. 
The public interest in our proceedings was main- 
tained by the publication of the society's quarterly 
journal. There were, however, naturally times of 
doubt and trouble. Thus, in 1874 — when I had 
to find all the money month by month, to translate 
Ganneau's voluminous and highly technical memoirs, 
to edit the journal and to receive all the visitors — 
I was married. This event took place in October. 

165 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

Three days before my wedding I received a note 
from Messrs. Coutts & Co. Two bills had been 
presented — one from Conder and the other from 
Ganneau — amounting together to about ^300 
more than we had in the bank. What was to be 
done ? Most of my people were out of town. One 
man lent me ^^50, another ^25, I could spare X75> 
and so on. I went down into the country at last 
with the comfortable assurance that these bills, at 
least, would be met. But what was to happen 
next? My own honeymoon, which I had planned 
for three weeks, was curtailed to less than a week, 
and I came back to the empty exchequer with a good 
deal of anxiety. But the local societies poured in 
their contributions ; the next bills were met ; the ad- 
vances were repaid ; and I went on with furnishing 
a modest semi-detached house at Shepherd's Bush, 
The secretaryship of the Palestine Exploration 
Fund, a small thing which began at ^200 a year 
and after a few years was increased to XJ^'^' ^^^ 
the cause — the sole cause — which enabled me to 
realise my dream of a literary life without depen- 
dence, and therefore without degradation. 1 shall 
go on in the next chapters to show how I realised 
that dream. At present I would only note the 
broad fact that never at any time was I depen- 
dent on my pen for a subsistence. Until my 
marriage my salary was just sufficient to enable me 
to live in reasonable comfort. Therefore I was in 
easy circumstances, comparatively. There was no 
pressing need for me to write ; I could afford to 

166 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

give time to things. Moreover, although my 
office hours were supposed to be from ten to four, 
as a rule, except in one or two years, there was 
not enough work to occupy a quarter of the time. 
To be sure, visitors came in and wasted the time. 
But almost every day I had the greater part of 
the morning to myself. After the letters had been 
answered I could carry on my own work in a per- 
fectly quiet office, I could give the afternoon to 
visitors, and from four till seven I was again free 
to carry on my work without interruption in my 
chambers. 

I would urge upon everybody who proposes to 
make a bid for literary success to do so with some 
backing — a mastership in a school, a Civil Service 
clerkship, a post as secretary to some institution or 
society ; anything, anything, rather than dependence 
on the pen, and the pen alone. 



167 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



Chapter IX 

FIRST STEPS IN THE LITERARY CAREER — AND 

LATER 

I AM going to show in this chapter how I got 
my feet on the lower rungs of the ladder, and 
how I began to climb. 
I go back to 1868, My book on early French 
poetry was out and had succeeded among the re- 
viewers. At least I had gained a start and a hear- 
ing, and, as I very soon found out, was regarded 
benevolently by certain editors as a man of some 
promise. It was in this year that I made the 
acquaintance of James Rice ; he was the editor and 
proprietor of Once a Week. I have already spoken 
of my voyage to the Island of Reunion, and men- 
tioned the paper I wrote about it. This paper was 
not acknowledged by the editor, but happening one 
day to take up Once a Week on a railway stall, I 
found my paper in it — printed badly, uncorrected, 
and full of mistakes. Naturally I wrote an angry 
letter, and in reply received a note in very courteous 
terms inviting me to call. I did so, and learned 
that the editor had just taken over the paper. He 
had found my article in type and published it, 
knowing nothing of the author ; he added compli- 
mentary remarks on the paper and invited me to 

168 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

write more for him, an invitation which I accepted 
with much satisfaction. 

Next I had an invitation from the late George 
Bentley, editor of 'Temple Bar^ to write for his maga- 
zine more studies in French Hterature. For six or 
seven years I continued to write papers for this 
magazine, perhaps three or four every year ; towards 
the end of that time, not so many. 

About the year 1870 I was invited to write for 
the British ^arterly Review^ to which I contributed 
some half-a-dozen essays, which cost me a great deal 
of time and work ; among them were papers entitled 
" The Failure of the French Reformation," " Ad- 
miral Coligny," the " Romance of the Rose," and 
" French Literary Clubs" ; and in the year 1871 I 
wrote a paper ^ov Macmillan s Magazine on Rabelais. 

In 1870, on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian 
War, the Marseillaise was restored to France as its 
national anthem. I happened to know the history 
of that hymn and sent a short paper on the subject 
to the Daily News. The editor not only accepted 
it, but called upon me and asked for more. This 
led to the contributions of leading articles on social 
subjects to that paper. I was never on the^ regular 
staff, but when I had a subject and could find the 
time, I v/ould offer an article, and it was seldom 
that it was refused. 

In 1873 I gathered together a group of my vari- 
ous papers and brought them out in volume form 
called The French Humorists. 

By this time, then, I was in a position to have 
169 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

as many papers as I could write accepted. I would 
beg the candidate for literature to consider how it 
was done : — 

I. I was not dependent on literature — I could 
spend time on my work. 

1. I began by producing a book on the subject 
on which I desired to be considered a specialist. 
The work had a succes d'estime, and in a sense made 
my literary fortune. 

3. This book opened the doors for me of ma- 
gazines and reviews. 

4. The knowledge of French matters also opened 
the door of the daily press to me. 

5. I followed up the line by a second book on 
the same subject. The press were again, on the 
whole, very civil. 

Circumstances obliged me to give up the pursuit 
of French literature, but I had at least succeeded in 
gaining a special reputation and in making an ex- 
cellent start as a writer on one subject. I was, of 
course, content with small returns. For my paper 
on the " Romance of the Rose," which cost me six 
months and more of solid work, I received ^^37. 
Between 1868 and 1873 ir^clusive, I do not suppose 
that I ever made so much as £,100 a year for all 
this work. I was, however, unmarried, I lived in 
chambers, and I still kept my secretaryship. It is 
really astonishing how well one can live as a bachelor 
on quite a small income. My rent was ^^40 a year ; 
my laundress, washing, coals, lights, and breakfast 
cost me about ^70 a year. My dinners — it is a 

170 



SIR fV A LT E R B ES A N T 

great mistake not to feed well — cost me about 
thirty shillings a week. Altogether I could live 
very well indeed on about j£2^o a year. Practi- 
cally I spent more, because I travelled whenever 
I could get away, and bought books, and was 
fond of good claret. The great thing in literary 
work is always the same — to be independent : not 
to worry about money, and not to be compelled 
to go pot-boiling. I could afford to be anxious 
about the work and not to be anxious at all about 
money. And I think that the happiest circum- 
stance of my literary career is that when the 
money became an object, the money began to 
come in. While I wanted but little, the income 
was small. 

During this time I was simply making my way 
alone without any literary acquaintance at all, and 
quite apart from any literary circles. I have never 
belonged to any cenacle^ " school," or Bohemian 
set. My friends were few : one or two of the old 
Cambridge lot, a stray Mauritian or two, an old 
schoolfellow or two. We got up whist in my 
chambers. I went to the theatre a good deal ; to 
society I certainly did not belong in any sense. 
And as I was perfectly happy with my private 
work in my chambers and with such solace of 
company as offered, I might have continued to the 
end in this seclusion and solitude, but for the hand 
of fate, which kindly pulled me out. 

My travels at this period were, like my daily life, 
principally alone. I went about France a good deal 

171 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

— in Normandy, down the Loire, in the unpro- 
mising parts of Picardy, about Fontainebleau and 
across country to Orleans and the neighbourhood. 
At home I wandered about the Lakes and about 
Northumberland ; visited cathedrals and seaports, 
watching and observing ; I sat in parlours of coun- 
try inns and listened. The talk of the people, their 
opinions and their views, amused and interested me. 
At the time I had no thought of using this ma- 
terial, and so most of it was wasted ; but some 
remained by me. 

For a week-end journey I sometimes had a com- 
panion in the person of S. L . He was a 

barrister without practice, a scholar who neither 
wrote nor lectured. He read a great deal and had 
no ambition to reproduce his learning ; there was 
no man of my acquaintance who had a wider know- 
ledge, a better memory, or a sounder critical taste. 
This critical taste, indeed, he carried into everything; 
it made him unhappy if his steak at a country inn 
was not well cooked and well served, and on the 
important subject of port wine he was really great. 
Except when he was on one of these journeys he 
used to get up every afternoon at half-past one, 
breakfast on coffee and bread and jam — but the 
jam had to come from his mother's house in the 
country ; at dinner he worked his way through 
the wine-lists either of club or tavern and always 
took port after dinner; he would sit in my cham- 
bers as late as I allowed him, and he used to go to 
bed habitually at four. This was his daily life, and 

172 



SIR IVALTER BESANT 

he carried it on with the utmost regularity till his 
death, which happened at the age of fifty-five. 

For many years it was my custom to go for a 
walk in midwinter. My friend Guthrie was my 
companion in these expeditions. We would be 
away three or four days, carrying a handbag over 
the shoulder, taking the train for a convenient dis- 
tance out of town, and mapping out our walk be- 
forehand so as to give ourselves, if possible, four 
hours before lunch and about two or three after 
lunch. Thus I remember a walk we took starting 
from Newbury, in Wiltshire, to Marlborough, and 
from Marlborough along the Wans Dyke to Devi- 
zes ; another from Bath to Glastonbury by way of 
Radstock, and from Glastonbury to Bridgewater; 
another from Penzance to Falmouth by way of 
Helston ; and another from Newnham, in Glouces- 
tershire, to Ross, Monmouth, Tintern, and Chep- 
stow — an excellent walk. The exhilaration of such 
a walk when the weather was frosty and clear cannot 
be described; the only objection was the long and 
deadly dulness of the evenings. One got in at 
about five, dinner was served at seven ; what was to 
be done between seven and ten — the earliest hour 
at which one could go to bed ? There was nothing 
for it but the smoking-room and the local company, 
or the billiard-room and the local funny man. 

In 1873, in consequence of the publication of The 
French Humorists^ I received an invitation to write 
for the Saturday Review. I contributed " middles " 
— i.e., essays on social matters — to this paper, not 

173 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

regularly, but occasionally, when a good subject 
came to me. I also reviewed a little for them, but 
not much. I always disliked reviewing, having an 
invincible dislike to " slating " an author, or to 
" log-rolling." I continued to write for the paper 
till its change of hands in 1894. 

In 1 87 1 I brought out the History of Jerusalem, 
the period covered being from the siege by Titus 
to modern times. Palmer was my collaborateur. 
He contributed the history from Moslem sources 
which had never before been searched and read for 
the purpose. I contributed the history as narrated 
in the Chronicles, which were also nearly new ma- 
terial. The book went out of print, but the sale 
of the whole edition showed a loss I For many 
years the book was not to be procured. But it 
was never dead. At last the publisher consented 
to issue a second edition subject to the condition 
of my guarantee of a sale of three hundred copies. 
To prevent any possible error about this guarantee, 
I simply took them all at trade price, and put the 
book in the lists of the Palestine Exploration Fund. 
The second edition went off at once, and a third 
edition followed. At the same time I took over 
from the publisher "The French Humorists, with the 
intention of revising, adding to, and improving it 
for a new edition should the opportunity ever 
occur. 

In 1875 — -^ think — I contributed a volume to 
Blackwood's Foreign Classics on Rabelais. I also 
contributed about this time to Blackwood's Series 

>74 



SIR TVJLTER BESANT 

of Foreign Classics, edited by Mrs. Oliphant, a 
volume on Rabelais. I had a little passage of 
arms with the editor, who tried to insist that 
Rabelais, as a Franciscan Friar, had to go about 
the town en quete, begging for the fraternity. She 
did not understand that long before his time the 
rule had been crystallised and the practice and 
custom of the Franciscans modified. The begging 
of the house simply consisted in the placing of 
boxes in shops and public places, while the income 
of the brethren was chiefly made up by Church 
dues, masses, funerals, and bequests. I followed 
up the volume with a volume of selections from 
Rabelais newly translated. I found, however, that 
it was impossible to make Rabelais popular. The 
allegorical method appeals to very few, unless the 
allegory is so simple as to lie quite on the sur- 
face. I wrote also a few articles for the Encyclopedia 
Britannica^ the most important of which was a paper 
on Froissart. I wonder if any one else has ever 
read Froissart's poems. 

In 1873 ^ joined the Savile Club, then full of 
young writers, young dons, and young scientific 
men ; but for some time I hardly used the club 
at all and was quite unknown to the members. 
Perhaps to live so retired a life — to spend the 
evenings alone in solitary chambers, working till 
eleven o'clock — was a mistake. On the other 
hand, as I was fated, as it appeared, about this 
time to write novels, it was just as well to avoid 
the narrowing influences of the club smoking-room. 

175 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

After my marriage the club smoking-room was 
farther off than ever, except on Saturdays, when I 
began to attend the luncheon party and to sit in 
the circle round the fire afterwards ; but always 
as an occasional guest, never as one of the two or 
three sets of writers and journalists who belonged 
to that circle. There was generally very good talk 
at the Savile : sometimes clever talk, sometimes 
amusing talk ; one always came away pleased, and 
often with new light on different subjects and new 
thoughts. 

Among the men one met on Saturdays were 
Palmer, always bubbling over with irrepressible 
mirth — a school-boy to the end; Charles Leland 
(Hans Breitmann), full of experiences ; Walter 
Herries Pollock, then the assistant editor of the 
Saturday Review ; Gordon Wigan, always ready to 
personate some one else ; Charles Brookfield, as 
fine a raconteur as his father; Edmund Gosse, fast 
becoming one of the brightest of living talkers ; 
Saintsbury, solid and full of knowledge, a critic to 
the finger tips, whether of a bottle of port, or a 
mutton chop, or a poet; H. E. Watts, formerly 
editor of the Melbourne Argus, and translator of Don 
fixate; Dufiield of the broken nose, who also 
translated Don ^ixote ; Robert Louis Stevenson, 
then young, and as singularly handsome as he was 
clever and attractive. Many other of my friends 
and acquaintances joined the club afterwards, but 
these are the members most associated in my 
memory with the Saturday afternoons. 

176 



SIR JV A LT ER B ES A NT 

I remember two Saturday afternoons especially. 
On one of them I had a French novel in my pocket. 
I had just bought it — a book by the author of 
Contes a Ninon. The circle broke up early, and I 
began to read the novel. I read it till it was time 
to go home ; I read it in the train ; after dinner I 
read it all the evening. Next day, being Sunday, 
I read it all the morning and all the afternoon — I 
finished it in the evening. On Monday, with the 
magic and the excitement of the story still upon 
me, I wrote a leading article on the Parisian work- 
man as presented by this book. I took it to the 
editor of the Dai/y News. He looked it through. 
"I wish I could take it," he said; "but it is too 
strong — too strong." I dare say it was too strong, 
for the book was U Assommoir ; but I have always 
regretted that the article did not appear. The 
second Saturday afternoon was one spent in reading 
the proofs of an unpublished story. James Payn 
sent it to me asking for my opinion. The book 
was by a new hand. It was called Vice Versa. 
That was an afternoon to stand out in one's 
memory. 

In 1879-81 I became editor of a series of biog- 
raphies called, ambitiously, the New Plutarch. 
Leland gave me a life of Abraham Lincoln ; Palmer 
a life of the Caliph Haroun al Raschid; Conder a 
life of Judas Maccabaeus; and Miss Janet Tucker 
a life of Joan of Arc. I myself wrote a life of 
Coligny. Rice undertook the life of Whittington 

and collected certain notes; but as his illness pre- 
12 177 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

vented him from making use of these, I took them 
over and made the biography a peg for a brief and 
popular study of mediaeval London, putting Rice's 
name on the title-page in acknowledgment of his 
notes — as I explained in the preface. The series 
was not successful. After ten years or so I man- 
aged to get my two volumes into my own hands 
again, and transferred them to Messrs. Chatto & 
Windus, where they are still, I believe, alive and in 
demand. The life of Coligny gave offence to High 
Church people, but that mattered very little. One 
can never write anything honest and with conviction 
without offending some one. I am always pleased 
to think that I was enabled to present the life of 
this great man to English readers. 

During the last eighteen years or so, I have been 
chiefly occupied with fiction. In 1885 or there- 
abouts I found myself unable to discharge the duties 
of my office at the Palestine Exploration Fund, 
although they had become very light. I had prac- 
tically got through with the survey of Western 
Palestine of which I was director, and my office was 
continually crowded with editors and publishers and 
visitors, who came to me not on account of their 
interest in Palestine. I therefore left off drawing 
the salary. This left me free to come and go as I 
liked, and I carried on the correspondence. But 
this could not last long. The cranks who once 
had amused me now wasted my time and exasper- 
ated me ; I had no patience with the multitudes 
who came with a coin or a lamp. I was compelled 

178 



SIR TVALTER BESANT 

to give it up. And so I went out after all into the 
open without any prop except the money I had 
made. At the age of fifty, with a big bundle of 
books and papers behind me, I turned to literature 
as a profession. But it already gave me an income 
which would be called handsome even at the bar. 

In 1 89 1 I produced the first of four books on 
London. They were called respectively Londotiy 
Westminster^ South London^ and East London. I 
shall talk about them and about my London work 
generally in another chapter.^ 

I have anticipated events, because it seemed best 
to keep separate the history of my career as a 
novelist. 

^ See Chapter XIV. Sir Walter Besant does not, however, mention 
the four books again. 



179 



AUTOBIOGRAPHT OF 



Chapter X 



THE START IN FICTION: CRITICS AND 
CRITICASTERS 

/4BOUT 1868 there was a somewhat foolish 
/-% custom of publishing collections of short 
-^ stories in Christmas numbers of the maga- 
zines. These stories were very poor as a rule, and 
they were strung together by a quite needless thread. 
Dickens, for instance, had his Mugby Junction, the 
introduction to which he wrote himself. Once a 
Week, of course, must fall in with the fashion. To 
the Christmas number of 1868 I contributed a 
short story ; to that of 1869 I contributed the larger 
part. It was called " Titania's Farewell," and de- 
scribed the last night of the fairies in this island. 
The motif was not, it is true, original. Corbett's 
" Farewell to the Fairies " belonged to the seven- 
teenth century. Wood's " Plea for the Midsummer 
Fairies " to the nineteenth ; but one cannot hope to 
be always original. The subject was fresh enough 
for the general reader, and the treatment was light, 
and I think pleasing, with a slight tinge of sadness. 
All kinds of bogies, wraiths, and goblins were intro- 
duced, and there were dances and songs. In a word, 
I believe it was a pretty little thing — at all events, 
it found many friends. It was published anony- 

180 



SIR fVALTER BESANT 

mously. To me this flimsy trifle became of the 
utmost importance, because it changed the whole 
current of my hfe. In place of a writer of " stud- 
ies," "appreciations," and the lighter kind of criti- 
cism, 1 became a novelist. Nothing could have been 
more fortunate. I now understand that there is no 
branch of the literary life more barren and dreary 
than that of writing notes upon poets and other 
writers dead and gone. I have seen the effect of 
this left upon so many. First, everybody can do 
it, well or ill ; therefore there is a striving for some- 
thing distinctive, resulting in extravagance, exagger- 
ations, studied obscurity, the pretence of seeing 
more than other people can see in an author, the 
parade of an inferior writer as a great genius ; so we 
have the revival of a poet deservedly forgotten — 
all pour Peffet^ and all leading directly to habitual dis- 
honesty, sham, and the estimation of form above 
matter. Indeed, many of these writers of" studies," 
after a few years, fail to understand matter or to 
look for anything but form. It is this that they 
look for and this alone that they talk about. I was 
rescued from their unfortunate fate while I still 
clung to the subject-matter as the principal and most 
important consideration. In an essay the thought 
is the first thing — the message which the writer 
has to communicate, the views and conclusions of 
his mind ; the style comes afterwards. A good 
essay is not an aff'air of adjectives with new applica- 
tions, nor of strange phrases, nor of new arrange- 
ments of words. At the same time, when a man 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

has a thing to say, he must study how to present it 
in the most attractive form possible for him. 

Consider, for instance, the way of the world in a 
picture gallery. The crowd go round the rooms 
from picture to picture ; they stop before any can- 
vas that tells a story ; they study the story ; they 
do not greatly care for, nor do they inquire too 
closely into, the method of telling the story — most 
of them never ask at all how the story is told ; they 
are entirely ignorant about grouping and drawing, 
about light, shadow, colour, and harmony. Pres- 
ently the professed critic comes along. Then we 
hear the art jargon ; there is talk of "values," of 
"middle distance," and all the rest of it ; but not a 
word of instruction. This kind of critic is like the 
man who writes " studies " and " appreciations " : 
he has developed a jargon. If we are lucky, we 
may meet the true critic who knows the construc- 
tion of a picture, and can divine first the thought 
and attempt of the artist, and next his method, and 
its success or failure. It is the same with books 
and their critics. The difference between the sham 
critic and the real critic is that the latter shows the 
reader how to look first for the intention of the 
book, and next how to examine into the method 
employed in carrying out that intention. I do not 
think that I was born to be a true critic, and by the 
blessing of the Lord I have been prevented from be- 
coming a sham critic. In the world of letters, I find 
many who write about books generously and with 
enthusiasm — these are the young writers ; I find 

182 



SIR fFJLTER BESANT 

many who write jargon — they are mostly the older 
writers, for the young and generous spirits degen- 
erate ; and I find a few, a very few, whose judgments 
are lessons both to the author and the reader. These 
true critics are never spiteful ; they are never 
" smart " ; they are never derisive ; they never pre- 
tend to be indignant ; they observe courtesy even 
in condemnation ; the writing is always well-bred ; 
and their words are always conclusive. 

For my own part I have always belonged to the 
crowd who read the story in the canvas ; and this 
whether I am studying a picture, a poem, a drama, 
or a novel. It is the story that I look for first. 
When I have read, or made out, the story, I may 
perhaps go on to consider how it is told ; perhaps I 
am quite satisfied with having read the story — in- 
deed, most stories are not worth discussing or con- 
sidering. In many cases I put the matter first and 
the form afterwards. The true critic considers the 
story which the author has attempted to tell, as the 
first point ; the sham critic considers the language 
and the style (which is, with him, a fashion of the 
day), and goes no farther. I used to think myself 
a critic when I was only a sympathetic listener 
easily absorbed in the story, carried out of myself 
by the art of the novelist or the poet, whether ap- 
parent or concealed. I now understand my limita- 
tions in the field of criticism, and I am continually 
grateful for the accident which took me out of the 
ranks of reviewers and criticasters and placed me in 
the company of the story-tellers. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

It ought to be understood that a true critic — 
one who is jealous for both the form and the matter, 
one who is above all personal considerations, one 
who is not a "slasher" and a "slater," but a cold 
and calm judge — is as rare as a true poet, and as 
valuable. Editors do not understand this. They 
seem to make no effort to secure the true critics ; 
they allow the disappointed failure, the " slasher," 
and the " slater" to defile their columns unchecked. 
There are not, in fact, enough true critics to go 
round, but an effort should be made by the younger 
men to imitate their methods. I believe that one 
can count on ten fingers the few critics whose judg- 
ments are lessons of instruction to writers as well as 
readers, who take broad views of literary work and 
do not judge a writer by a fault of taste here, or a 
wrong date there, or an error of opinion, or a mis- 
take in fact. 

I was not, I say, by gift of nature one of this 
small company. Had I continued in the line which 
I had at first designed, I should certainly have be- 
longed before long to that large company of writers 
who are always ready with a paper on any literary 
subject which you like to name ; who do odd jobs 
for publishers ; who are made men when they can 
get a "study " of a writer into a series; and who drag 
down — down — down — every magazine which gives 
them free access. In a word, there were two lines 
open to me: I might continue as secretary of a society 
and so obtain a livelihood, doing literary work out- 
side the daily hours of routine — always in bachelor 

184 



SIR JV A LT E R B ES A NT 

chambers, and becoming every year more of a her- 
mit; or I might give up secretarial work and live 
upon literature — somehow, earning a precarious 
income, a hack and a dependent, soured, poor, dis- 
appointed, and bitter. There are many such un- 
fortunates about. They pretend to be leaders ; 
they give themselves airs of superiority ; they are 
bitter and ungenerous reviewers ; their lot is still 
the lot of Grub Street ; they are, as always, the 
children of Gibeon who hew wood and draw water 
and do hack work for their employers, for the pay 
of a solicitor's clerk. That I was spared from 
taking either of these two obvious lines was greatly 
due to the writing and publishing of " Titania's 
Farewell." 

For after the appearance of " Titania's Farewell," 
Rice came to me with a proposal. It was that I 
would collaborate with him in writing a novel, the 
plot of which had already been drawn out in the 
rough by himself. His plot was simply the story 
of the Prodigal Son with variations. The wanderer 
was to return apparently repentant, in reality re- 
solved upon getting out of the old man all that he 
could secure. The father was to be a rich miser, a 
banker in a country town. The idea seemed to 
offer great possibilities in the way of incident and 
character. In fact, the more one looked at it, the 
more these possibilities extended. Of course the 
Prodigal would have a past to hamper him ; one 
past belonging to the time before he left the pater- 
nal home, and another belonging to his adventurous 

i8s 



AUTOBIOGRAPHIC OF 

career about the world. I accepted the proposal. 
I set to work with a will, and before long our Prodi- 
gal was working out his later developments in the 
columns of Once a Week. The plot, naturally, was 
modified. The Prodigal grew more human ; he 
became softened; but the past remained with him 
to hamper him and to drag him down. 

When it came to reproducing the story as a 
volume. Rice proposed that we should print it and 
give it to a publisher as a commission book. There 
was no doubt about its success from the first. As a 
pecuniary speculation it was as successful as could 
be expected in those days, when half-a-dozen novel- 
ists commanded a circulation in three-volume forms 
of twelve hundred or so ; and the next dozen or so 
were lucky if they got rid of six hundred copies of 
their works. I do not think that my own share 
of the proceeds, from the beginning to the end, 
of Ready Money Mortiboy reached more than jCioo 
or /250. 

I have often been asked to explain the method of 
collaboration adopted by Rice and myself. The 
results were certainly satisfactory so far as popularity 
was concerned, a fact which goes a long way to ex- 
plaining this curiosity, no other literary collaboration 
having been comparable, in this country, with ours 
for success. My answer to the question was always 
the same. It is impossible that I should offer any 
explanation or give any account of this method, see- 
ing that my collaborateur has been dead since the 
year 1882. It is enough to state that we worked 

186 



SIR tVALTER BESANT 

without disagreement ; that there was never any 
partnership between us in the ordinary sense of the 
word; but that the collaboration went on from one 
story to another always without any binding condi- 
tions, always liable to be discontinued ; while each 
man carried on his own independent literary work, 
and was free to write fiction, if he pleased, by him- 
self. 

The collaboration had its advantages ; among 
others, that of freeing me, for my part, from the 
worry of business arrangements. I am, and always 
have been, extremely averse from making terms and 
arrangements for myself. At the same time, if I 
were asked for my opinion as to collaboration in 
fiction, it would be decidedly against it. I say this 
without the least desire to depreciate the literary 
ability of my friend and collaborateur. The arrange- 
ment lasted for ten years and resulted in as many 
successful novels. I only mean that, after all, an 
artist must necessarily stand alone. If two men 
work together, the result must inevitably bear the 
appearance of one man's work ; the style must be 
the same throughout ; the two men must be rolled 
into one ; each must be loyal to the other; neither 
can be held responsible for plot, incident, character, 
or dialogue. There will come a time when both 
men fret under the condition ; when each desires, 
but is not able, to enjoy the reputation of his own 
good work ; and feels, with the jealousy natural to 
an artist, irritated by the loss of half of himself and 
ready to accept the responsibility of failure in order 

187 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

to make sure of the meed of success. Now that 
Rice is dead it is impossible for me to lay hands 
upon any passage or page and to say " This belongs 
to Rice — this is mine." The collaboration would 
have broken down, I believe, amicably. It would 
have been far better if it had broken down five years 
before the death of Rice, so that he might have 
achieved what has been granted to myself — an 
independent literary position. 

There are, however, some parts in our joint work 
which, without injustice to him or to myself, I may 
fairly assign to one or the other. In Ready Money 
Mortiboy, as I have stated, the plot and the origin 
and the conception were his ; the whole of the part 
concerned with the country town and the bank is 
his. On the other hand, in the story called By 
Celia s Arbour the whole of the local part, that 
which belongs to Portsmouth, is my own. I was 
born in the place, which Rice never, to my know- 
ledge, even saw. On the other hand, there are many 
parts of all the stories, in which our rambles about 
London, and conversations over these rambles, sug- 
gested situations, plots, and characters, which it 
would be impossible to assign to either. Of The 
Golden Butterfly, the origin which has already been 
plainly stated in certain introductions may be re- 
peated. The thing itself — the Golden Butterfly — 
was seen by my brother, Mr. Edgar Besant, in Sac- 
ramento, California. He told me about it, and it 
suggested possibilities. Rice at the same time had 
thought of a story of a Canadian who " struck ile," 

i88 



SIR WALTER B ES A NT 

became a millionaire, created a town, and was there 
ruined, town and ail, by the drying up of the supply. 
He also found the " fighting editor." The twins 
were a reminiscence, not an invention, of my own. 
The rest, as any novelist will understand, was simply 
the construction of a novel with these materials as 
its basis. This story appeared in the year 1876, a 
quarter of a century ago. Like Ready Money Mor- 
tiboyy it has never ceased to sell : last year the 
publishers — now the proprietors — brought out an 
edition at sixpence. They sold the whole — 1 50,000 
copies — in three weeks. I repeat that I desire to 
suggest nothing that might seem to lessen the work 
of Rice in the collaboration, while, both for his 
sake and my own, I regret that it ever went beyond 
"The Golden Butterfly^ which was quite the most suc- 
cessful of the joint novels. The continued popu- 
larity of this and one or two others of my novels 
has always been the most gratifying circumstance in 
my literary career. 

In 1876 Rice and I began to write the Christmas 
number for All the Tear Round, which was con- 
tinued until Rice's death in 1882, and after that by 
myself till 1887. The stories which formed these 
Christmas numbers were in length very nearly as 
long as many stories now produced at six shillings. 
Some of them were very popular ; all of them gave 
me the greatest pleasure possible in writing, partly 
because they were short enough to turn on a single 
motif with a small number of characters. The 
three-volume novel, on the other hand, was three 

189 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

times the length of the Christmas number and pre- 
sented much greater constructive difficulties. The 
ignorant reviewer used to talk of the " Procrus- 
tean " length of the three-volume novel. Of course 
there was no more uniformity of length about the 
three-volume novel than exists now with the one- 
volume. The three-volume novel, in fact, varied 
in length, say, from 100,000 words to 300,000 
words. It was thought to be giving short measure 
to present the former length, but the longer might 
tax the energies of the reader too much. 

The ignorant reviewer has also, on many occa- 
sions, waxed eloquent over the estimate of length by 
so many words. He imagines that the words are 
carefully counted and that the writer is bound not 
to exceed a certain fixed number and not to offer a 
story less than that number. Now, since most 
novels of repute appear first as serials, one is bound 
to consider the length of each instalment, and there 
is no more ready way of estimating the length than 
by the number of words. I have written serials 
for a great many publications. Let me take one, 
the Illustrated London News. Here the only condi- 
tion imposed on the author was that the story was 
to run for twenty-six weeks. This meant an average 
length of so many columns. Translated into num- 
bers, it meant about 6,000 words for each instalment. 
But I am quite certain that the editor of the Illus- 
trated London News never counted the words ; if 
the chapter was a few hundred words over or under 
the average length, it mattered notliing. As I 

190 



SIR JVJLTER BESANT 

always write on paper of the same size and know 
very approximately the number of words that fill 
one page, I have never had any difficulty in dividing 
the chapters into tolerably equal instalments. 

Formerly, the writer reckoned by sheets ; still he 
must have learned how many words go to a sheet ; 
or by pages, but still he must have learned how 
many words go to a page ; or by columns, but with 
the same necessity. It is surely better to begin at 
once with the number of words, always under- 
standing that there is not, as the ignorant reviewer 
would insist, a yard measure or a two-foot rule in- 
troduced or any rigid condition about the number 
of words. 

Let me note one or two other points on which 
the reviewer often betrays his ignorance. The Spec- 
tator is in most respects a well-conducted and well- 
informed journal. I saw in the Spectator some time 
ago a notice of a certain recently deceased writer 
who, the reviewer pointed out, had most unfortu- 
nately brought out his novels in serial form, so that 
he was compelled to end each instalment with a sen- 
sational incident, a circumstance which spoiled his 
work. One would really think that a person allowed 
to write for the Spectator would have known better 
than to talk such rubbish ; he or she would at least, 
one would think, have sufficient knowledge of the 
history of fiction to know that Dickens, Thackeray, 
Trollope, George Eliot, Charles Reade, Wilkie 
Collins, George Meredith, William Black, Black- 
more, Hardy — everybody of note among modern 

191 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

novelists — brought out their novels in serial form. 
Yet this fact has not spoiled their work. I have, if 
that affects the question, brought out nearly all my 
novels in serial form first. And I may safely aver 
that I have never felt, recognised, or understood 
that there was the least necessity for ending an in- 
stalment with an incident. There is, however, no 
end to the rubbish — mostly ignorant, partly malevo- 
lent — that is written and published about novels. 
In the same paper, for instance, I found the other 
day an objection to one of my characters on the 
ground that it was not a " transcript from nature " ! 
Therefore, if you please, no novelist has a right to 
present a character which is not a portrait ! Why, 
the characters of the first and best novelists are 
never " transcripts " from nature. They are sug- 
gested by certain points, often unsuspected points, 
in real characters. That to which my reviewer 
objected was a character suited to the actual times, 
insomuch as he might very well exist, and perhaps 
does exist. No impossibility was presented. But 
he was certainly not a " transcript from nature." 

The ignorant and prejudiced reviewer of novels 
is not perhaps so much to blame as the editor of 
the paper where the review appears, for so long as 
the editor expects his reviewer to pronounce a 
judgment upon a dozen novels every week, so long 
will those judgments be either miserably inadequate 
or dishonest. I cannot conceive any kind of work 
more demoralising to a writer than that of reviewing 
a dozen novels every week in, say, two columns. 

192 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

The inevitable result is that he loses all sense of 
proportion ; one novel becomes as much worth 
mentioning as another ; George Meredith — as actu- 
ally happened once in a "literary" journal — may 
be dismissed in a paragraph between the works of 
two schoolgirls. The reviewer, after a short course 
of this kind of work, loses the power of judgment; 
he scamps the reading so persistently that he be- 
comes unable to read ; he makes an effort to get at 
something like the story, which he proceeds to tell 
baldly and badly ; appreciation is impossible where 
there has been no real reading : he cannot praise 
because praise is a definite thing which, unless it is 
general and meaningless, must be based on actual 
reading ; but he can depreciate. Sometimes, of 
course, in his haste, he makes dire blunders. I 
have known many such cases. Thus, a novel 
praised to the skies one week was slated pitilessly, 
a few weeks later, in the same weekly ! I remember 
once in the Athen^um a notice of a novel of my own. 
The book was dismissed in eight or ten lines, every 
one of which contained a separate misstatement 
concerning the story. It was, I remember, stated 
that the whole action of the book took place in a 
banker's office. There was no mention of such a 
thing as a bank or a banker in the whole book. 

It is to me, I confess, a continual subject of 
wonder that an editor who allows books to be 
noticed in batches — t^n or a dozen every \veek — 
does not understand that by doing so he actually 
throws away the whole weight of his paper as a 
13 193 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

critical organ — the whole weight of his authority. 
Surely it would be better, in the long run, to pre- 
serve the character of a paper for fair, dispassionate, 
and competent criticism, than, for the sake of pleas- 
ing publishers (who are wholly indifferent to criti- 
cism and care for nothing at all but a line of praise 
that they can quote), to issue miserable little para- 
graphs, whose praise carries no conviction — because 
it is and must be, so long as the present plan of 
reviewing by batches continues, couched in general 
terms — and whose condemnation can produce no 
effect upon the mind of the reader. Yet, in one 
paper after another, the suicidal policy is preserved. 
It must be remembered that these paragraphs are 
simply passed over by the majority of readers. It is 
impossible, week after week, to persuade them that 
the batch of books so noticed can have been read. 

Another point in which the ordinary editor is 
blameworthy is that he takes no care to keep out 
of his paper the personal element. He allows the 
log-roller to praise his own friends and the spiteful 
and envious failure to abuse his enemies. This 
carelessness is so common in English journalism 
that one knows beforehand, when certain books ap- 
pear, the organs in which they will be praised or 
assailed. Surely, for the credit of his paper, an 
editor might at least ascertain, beforehand, that a 
critic is neither the friend nor the enemy of the 
author. In the New York Critic^ I have been 
told, every reviewer is on his honour not to under- 
take a criticism of the work of a personal friend or 

194 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

a personal enemy. We have many things to learn 
from America. The maintenance of the honour 
and the reputation and the authority of the critical 
columns of our journals is one of these things. 

It is, of course, quite impossible for any journal 
to deal with all the books that appear — the trashy 
novels especially. Surely a review should be a dis- 
tinction for the author and an opportunity for the 
critic. Why should not a responsible paper select one 
or two novels a week, as worthy, not of a paragraph 
among a batch of other paragraphs, but of a serious 
review by some one who is competent to speak of a 
work of art ? There are certainly not a hundred 
novels in the year which are really so worthy ; and 
the judgment, calmly considered, by a serious and 
educated critic should not only be of service to the 
author and to the book, but it would be instructive 
to the reader, who has for the most part studied 
no canons of criticism and formed consciously no 
literary standards. But the reviewer must be seri- 
ous and educated. He must know what the canons 
of criticism mean ; he must be trustworthy ; he 
must not be the hack who rolls the log for his 
friend and " slates " his enemies ; he must be, in 
a word, a man of honour. Should there, then, be 
no criticism of bad books ? Assuredly. It is a 
foolish waste of time and space to "slate" a poor 
little weakling which will never be presented to the 
public except in a seaside circulating library, made 
up of "remainders." But in the case of a bad 
book, or a mischievous book, or a book which has 

195 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

succeeded and yet ought not to have succeeded, it 
is the duty of the critic to inform and instruct the 
reader as to the true character and tendencies of 
this book. This he can very well do, if he is him- 
self a gentleman as well as a scholar, in the language 
and the manner of courtesy and politeness. 

Let me return to my subject. The collaboration 
between Rice and myself lasted for one book after 
another — there was never any binding agreement, 
contract, or partnership — for about ten years. 
During this time we produced three highly success- 
ful novels, viz.. Ready Money Mortiboy^ 'The Golden 
Butterfly^ and "The Chaplain of the Fleets and others 
— My Little Girl^ By Celias Arbour^ This Son of 
Vulcan^ With Harp and Crown, The Monks of The- 
lema, The Seamy Side, and two or three volumes 
of short stories, including The Case of Mr. Lucraft, 
all of which did very well and made friends for the 
writers. The method of publication pursued was 
simple. The novel or the story first appeared in a 
magazine or journal ; it was then published in 
three-volume form ; after a year or so it came out 
in a single volume at jj. 6d. ; and finally as a 
" yellow-back " at is. 

I think, trying to put myself outside these novels, 
that they are really a collection with which one may 
reasonably be satisfied. The book that I like best 
of them all is The Chaplain of the Fleet. It was the 
first of my eighteenth-century novels, and perhaps 
the best. The situations, the plot, the characters, 
all seem to me, if I may speak in praise of myself, 

196 



SIR IVALTER BESANT 

original and striking. It was a subject which lent 
itself to firm and vigorous drawing. I am, in fact, 
more and more convinced that the first and most 
important thing is to have a clear story with strong 
characters. It was impossible that reviewers could 
be more appreciative than those who reviewed this 
series of novels. The collaboration lasted off and 
on for ten years. Then it came to an end. 

Early in 1881 Rice was attacked by an illness, 
for which he came to town, thinking that a week or 
two of rest and treatment would set him right. He 
stayed in town for six weeks ; he then went home 
and reported himself in a fair way of recovery. 
But then followed symptoms which were persistent 
and unaccountable ; he could not eat anything with- 
out suffering dire pains ; he tried oysters, chopped 
up raw beef, all kinds of things. Then the pains 
vanished ; he even thought himself quite recovered ; 
he went for a week or two to Dunquerque in 
August. On his return the symptoms reappeared. 
After lingering for six months in great suffering, he 
died in April 1882 at the age of thirty-nine; the 
cause was a cancer in the throat. 



197 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 



Chapter XI 

THE NOVELIST WITH A FREE HAND 

MY life between 1882 and 1900 is a simple 
chronicle of work done. Perhaps it may- 
be of no interest to my readers. In that 
case let the chapter be omitted, because it is purely 
personal. During this period my beard grew grey ; 
I advanced from forty-six to sixty-four ; from 
middle age I became old ; but I never ceased to 
rejoice in my work; to find every novel — there 
was one a year — the most delightful I had ever 
written ; to fall in love with my heroine ; to ad- 
mire my young men of virtue; and to desire, above 
all things, that my villain should reap the fruit of 
his iniquities. Thus are we made. When villainies 
are exposed, we desire nothing so much as the per- 
former's punishment; no punishment can be too 
severe for so great a villain ; we burn to see him 
scourged. Yet we never wax in the least indignant 
over our own meannesses and frailties — call them 
not villainies, though their fruits may be as poison- 
ous as the monstrous growths that follow the crimes 
of fiction. 

Eighteen novels in eighteen years ! It seems a 
long list; how can one write so much and yet sur- 
vive? My friends, may I ask why a painter is 

198 



SIR tVJLTER BESJNT 

allowed to produce a couple of pictures and more 
every year and no one cries out upon him for his 
haste in production ; yet if a story-teller gives to 
the world a novel every year, the criticaster yaps at 
his heels and asks all the world to observe the haste 
which the novelist makes to get rich. Poor novel- 
ist I It is not often, indeed, that he does get rich. 
In my own case I was endowed by nature with one 
quality which, I am sure, I may proclaim without 
boasting. It is that of untiring industry. It is no 
merit in me to work continuously. I am not happy 
when I am not working. I cannot waste the after- 
noon in a club smoking-room ; nor can I waste two 
hours before dinner in a club library ; nor can I 
waste a whole morning pottering about a garden ; 
and in the evening, after dinner, I am fain to repair 
to my study, there to look over proofs, hunt up 
points, and arrange for the next day's work. Again, 
when I have fiction in hand I cannot do any good 
with it for more than three or four hours a day — 
say from nine till half-past twelve. In the afternoon 
I must work at other things. What those things 
have been, I will speak of presently. 

I find that, on an average, a novel has taken me 
about eight or ten months from the commencement 
to the end. If you turn this statement into a little 
sum in arithmetic, you will find that it means about 
a thousand words a day. Do not, however, imagine 
that I write a thousand words a day. Not at all. 
My method (again advising readers not interested 
in this confession to go on to the next chapter) 

199 



AVTOBIOGRAPHT OF 

always has been the same. The central motif o? 
the story is first settled and decided upon. It 
should be a plain, clear, and intelligible 7notif — one 
which all the world can understand. Round this 
theme has to be grouped a collection of characters 
whose actions, conversations, and motives form a 
clear and consistent story while they supply views 
of life, pictures of life, and illustrations of life. It 
is obvious that to find these characters is the great 
difficulty ; it is obvious that one may easily fall 
into mistakes and decide upon characters without 
much interest to the reader. Now the writer does 
not understand this until too late. I could name 
one of my stories where the central theme was very 
good and should have been striking, but the tale 
was marred by the lack of interest in the principal 
character. 

However, the motifs the story, and the characters 
having been decided upon, the next step is the pre- 
sentation, which involves practice and study in the 
art of construction. I would not insist too strongly 
on the study required for the construction of a 
story, because if an aspirant has not the gift, no 
study will endow him with it. But he should cer- 
tainly pay great attention at the outset. Above all, 
he should aim at presenting his situations with a 
view to dramatic effect; not, that is, to let down the 
curtain at the end of a chapter upon a tableau^ but 
to lead up to the situation dramatically, to present 
it dramatically, and to group his characters, so to 
speak, dramatically. He should also avoid long 

;:oo 



SIR tVALTER BESANT 

descriptions of character ; very few writers can do 
these well ; it is best for the ordinary novelist to 
make his characters describe themselves in dialogue. 
This is easy, provided that the writer has got a clear 
grip of each character and can make him talk, with- 
out effort, up to his character. He will, of course, 
have an eye to proportion. It is amazing to find 
how many novels are ruined for want of due pro- 
portion between the parts, so that the beginning 
overshadows the end, or the end is out of harmony 
with the beginning. 

For my own part, I proceed, after the prelimina- 
ries, which generally take three weeks or a month 
of irritating experiment, failure, and patient trying 
over and over again, to write at headlong speed the 
first two or three chapters. These I lay aside for a 
few days and then take them up again ; the heat of 
composition is over and one can then estimate in 
cold blood what the thing means and how it pro- 
mises. In any case, it has all to be written over 
again : the first draft is chaotic ; the dialogue is 
only suggested ; the situations are slurred ; things 
irrelevant or of no consequence are introduced. 
Then I set to work to rewrite, to correct, and to 
expand. Very often the first rough chapter becomes 
an introduction, followed by two or three chapters 
which begin the story. At the same time I go on 
to another rough draft of future chapters. So the 
novel is constructed much on the principle of a 
tunnel, in which the rough boring and blasting goes 
on ahead, while the completion of the work slowly 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

follows. After a little there is no longer the least 
trouble about quantity of material ; it becomes 
solely a question of selection ; the characters are all 
alive and they are working out the story in their 
own way — there are sometimes a dozen situations 
from which one only can be chosen — and their talk 
is incessant and, for the most part, wide of the mark 
— that is to say, it interests them but it does not 
advance the story. And so the time passes ; the 
summer follows the spring ; the novelist is absorbed 
almost every day for three or four hours with his 
work. Unless he is w^orking at other things he 
lives in a dream ; he does not want to talk much ; 
he does not want society ; he wants only to be left 
alone. To dream away one's life is pleasant ; but 
alas ! no one knows how swiftly the time passes in 
a dream. For thirty years I have been dreaming 
during the greater part of every year. What should 
I have done had it not been for this pageant of 
Dreamland, which has kept me perfectly happy, 
though sometimes careless and oblivious of the 
outer world .'' 

Perhaps it is superfluous to describe the methods 
of my work ; as I said before, my readers may pass 
over this chapter ; it may, however, be of some use 
to young aspirants to know how a craftsman in 
their art worked — may I add ? — non sine gloria^ 
not without a certain measure of success. 

I do not propose to describe the genesis of these 
novels, or to relate the chronicles of small beer 
about their production, the opinions of the press 



SIR TV A LT E R B ES A N T 

upon them, and their pecuniary returns. I have 
stated my general method of writing a novel ; not, 
mind, so many pages, or so many hours a day ; not 
sitting down by a blind rule, nor waiting till the 
inspiration came — that is only another name for 
prolonged idleness under a nonsensical pretence ; 
but I exercised upon myself a certain amount of 
pressure at the outset, when the work was difficult 
and the way thorny ; and afterwards, when the way 
was easy I sat down morning after morning unless 
indisposition, or some engagement which must be 
kept, forbade. As to the appearance of these 
novels, they all came out in serial form simulta- 
neously in America as well as in England. Let me 
here express my great and lasting gratitude to my 
agents, Mr. A. P. Watt and his son, by whose 
watch and ward my interests have been so carefully 
guarded for eighteen years. During that time I 
have always been engaged for three years in ad- 
vance ; I have been relieved from every kind of 
pecuniary anxiety ; my income has been multiplied 
by three at least; and I have had, through them, 
the offer of a great deal more work than I could 
undertake. I cannot speak too strongly of the 
services rendered to me by my literary agents. Of 
course, there are different kinds of agents. There 
is the agent, for example, who knows nothing about 
his business. But the agent who does know his 
business, who knows also editors, publishers, and 
their arrangements, may be of immense use to the 
novelist, the essayist, the traveller — in short, to 

203 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

the author of any book that can command a 
circulation and a public demand. And such an 
agent is Mr. A. P. Watt. 

Of the eighteen novels, by far the best, in my 
own judgment, is Dorothy Forster. It was, I think, 
in 1869 that I first visited what is perhaps the most 
interesting county in the whole of England — 
Northumberland. It was in Bamborough Castle 
that I first heard the story of Dorothy Forster. It 
occurred to me then, before I had begun to think 
of becoming a novelist, that the story was a subject 
which presented great possibilities; but as yet I had 
only written one story, which was a failure. In 1874 
I was married. I had by that time written certain 
novels which had some success, and I had already 
resolved vaguely upon undertaking the subject as 
soon as I could find time and opportunity. After 
my marriage I made the very interesting discovery 
that my wife's family had changed their name in the 
year 1698, or thereabouts, from Forster to Barham ; 
that they were descendants of the Forsters of 
Addlestone and Bamborough, through Chief Justice 
Forster of Queen Elizabeth's time, and that Doro- 
thy Forster, my heroine, was therefore my wife's 
cousin, though ever so many times removed. This 
was, I say, a very interesting discovery. We went 
down to Bamborough a year or two later, making 
a pilgrimage to the old home. In 1880 or 188 1 I 
went again by myself, the purpose of writing the 
book having grown more definite. I visited all the 
places that I wanted for the story, and made many 

204 



SIR tV A L T E R B ES A N T 

notes as to the local surroundings. In 1882 I took 
my father-in-law with me, and we made together a 
posting-tour of the country. This is quite the best 
way to see the country-side, and I really think that 
I have seen nearly the whole of Northumberland 
— not quite all, but the most important part — in 
these four visits. In 1883 I wrote the story — with 
great ease, because it was already in my head — and 
in 1884 it came out in the Graphic, being most 
beautifully illustrated by my late friend, Charles 
Green, whose drawing, to my mind, was surpassed 
by few, while his conscientious care in the selection 
of the most telling situations and in draping his 
models with correct costumes was beyond all praise. 
He gave me three or four of the drawings, which I 
had framed. They now hang on my staircase, where 
I can see them every day, and so be reminded of 
Dorothy, of Northumberland, and of Charles 
Green. The book dealt with the Rebellion of 17 15, 
but in its side issues. I leave battle-pieces to any 
who choose ; I know my own limitations, which do 
not include exercises in military strategy. A battle 
is beyond me ; the marching and the charging and 
the points of vantage confuse me. So also courts 
and grandeurs are beyond me. But I had my brave 
and loving Dorothy with me. All through the 
book, in every chapter and on every page, I loved 
her and I let her talk and act ; to be with her was 
better from my point of view than the clang and 
clash of a dozen battles. 

Four other stories out of the eighteen also be- 
205 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

longed to the eighteenth century. They were For 
Faith ajid Freedom (end of seventeenth century). 
The World Went Very Well Theriy St. Katherine's by 
the Tower ^ and The Orange Girl} The first of these, 
like Dorothy Forster, was a story showing how a 
great rebellion, that of Monmouth's, affected the 
fortunes of a small group. The battle of Sedge- 
moor, tho, haute politique^ the intrigues of the Court, 
belonged to another novel, unwritten. Mine had to 
do with the by-ways, the side-currents, the backwater 
of that movement. Conan Doyle brought out his 
novel of Micah Clarke at the same time and on the 
same subject. I do not think the two stories in- 
jured each other. 

One anecdote in connection with this story illus- 
trates the " long arm of coincidence." The people 
in my novel were sent out to Barbadoes as political 
convicts. I desired above all things to follow them 
there. Indeed, it was necessary unless a great op- 
portunity should be thrown away. But I could 
find nothing on the subject. Defoe, it is true, 
talked about Virginia and the Plantations, and in 
his own manner, apparently, gave exact details. 
When, however, one looked into the pages, the 
exact details were only there in appearance — he 
did not know the daily life. Now I wanted every- 
thing : the hours of work, the kind of work, the 
dress, the food, the treatment of the prisoners by 
the overseers — everything. What was I to do ? 

^ The Lady of Lynn, wliich was In the press wlicn its author died, is 
also an eighteenth-century stury. 

206 



SIR PVALTER BESANT 

I went to the British Museum : nothing seemed 
known. I became sorrowfully aware that I should 
have to invent the details, or to guess at them from 
the very meagre notes at my disposal. Now to me, 
pondering sadly on this necessity, there came one 
evening half-a-dozen catalogues of second-hand 
books. I turned them over idly, marking such 
books as seemed likely to be of help in the restora- 
tion of the past, when suddenly I came upon a 
title that made me jump. It was "The Journal of 

A. B •, sometime chyrurgeon to the Duke of 

Monmouth, with his trial and sentence to the Plan- 
tations of Barbadoes ; his Captivity there ; and his 
Escape. Price, One Guinea." Heavens ! What 
luck ! For here was the very thing I wanted ! In 
the morning I drove off early to the bookseller's. 
The book was gone ! An American had picked it 
up the day before. But I had at least the title, 
and, armed with this, I went off again to the British 
Museum. In the vast ocean of pamphlets in the 
library this was found. I caused the whole thing 
to be copied out bodily, with the result that I had 
a chapter charged with real life, and with the actual- 
ities of convict labour in the late seventeenth cen- 
tury. Needless to say that none of my reviewers 
noticed this chapter. One man to whom I told 
the story coldly observed, " Then you stole that 
chapter." Why, a man who writes a novel of past 
life, as a history of past life, must steal — if you call 
it so ! He may invent, but then it will not be past 
life ; he must use the old material if he can find it ; 

207 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

if he cannot find it, he cannot write a novel of past 
life. 

The third story of the past is called 'The World 
Went Very Well Then. The leading incident round 
which the story is constructed was, in like manner, 
found by me. About the end of the seventeenth 
century there was a certain young lieutenant of the 
Navy, who promised a girl at Deptford marriage 
when he should return from his next cruise. He 
did return ; she reminded him of his promise ; he 
laughed at her. She fell on her knees and prayed 
solemnly that God Almighty would smite him in 
that part which he should feel the most. He was 
then appointed captain of a ship. He took her 
into action, having the reputation of a brave and 
gallant officer. He was seized with sudden cowar- 
dice and struck the flag at the first shot. That was 
my material for the story, and very good material 
it was. The story came out in the Illustrated Lon- 
don NewSj and was admirably illustrated by Mr. 
Forestier. 

Another eighteenth-century story, suggested by 
an incident of the time, was St. Katherine s by the 
Tower. In this story the young suitor comes home 
to marry his sweetheart. He arrives full of love 
and of happiness. To his amazement the girl 
shrinks from him, rejects him, with every sign of 
loathing and disgust. More than this, she falls 
into melancholia, threatening decline. The lover 
thinks that his death alone will cause her recovery. 
He courts death in many ways, but death avoids 

208 



SIR JVJLTER BESJNT 

him. He therefore joins a company of so-called 
" traitors," and is sentenced to death. The rest 
of the story may be found in the pages of the 
book. 

Of the other novels I must speak very briefly. 
They are either studies of the East End and of the 
people, as All Sorts and Conditions of Men^ The 
Children of Gibeon, The Alabaster Box — a story of 
a settlement — and The Rebel ^een^ or they are 
stories of to-day. All in a Garden Fair presents an 
account, somewhat embroidered, of my own literary 
beginnings. Herr Paulus is a story of spiritualistic 
fraud — I have always rejoiced to think that the 
story was considered a great blow to Sludge and his 
friends. Armorel of Lyonesse is an exposure of the 
impudent charlatan who produces artistic and literary 
works under his own name which are executed by 
another's hand — a fraud more common, I have 
been told, ten years ago, than it is now. The City 
of Refuge is a story of life in one of the American 
communities. The Master Craftsman is the history 
of the politician who makes himself by the aid of 
an ambitious woman. Beyond the Dreams of Avarice 
is a tale of the evil influence of the inheritance of 
great wealth. Of course such a theme easily brings 
to the stage a number of people of all kinds and 
all conditions. The prospect of wealth corrupts 
and demoralises every one — the man of science, 
the man of pleasure, the colonial, the actor, the 
American. 

The Fourth Generation is the most serious of all 
14 209 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

my novels. Here we have to deal with the truth 
that the children do undoubtedly suffer for the sins 
of the fathers. It is impossible to deny the facts 
of the case; they are conspicuous in every family, 
in all history. It seems unjust. The Hebrew 
Prophets considered the case ; one of them pro- 
claimed the law; another defined its limitation. In 
the novel I have admitted the law. I have shown 
how, by reason of an undetected crime, one member 
of a family after another is struck with misfortune and 
degraded by crimes. Yet there are the limitations. 
A reviewer, in speaking in commendation of the 
story, said that he was amazed to find a reference 
to a Hebrew Prophet in the preface. The amaze- 
ment was caused by his inability to understand that 
a novel may be a perfectly serious document and 
that a novelist may illustrate a most important law 
of humanity by a simple, even an amusing, story. 
The limitations are plainly laid down by the 
Prophet Ezekiel. They amount to this : The fa- 
ther, by his sins, may condemn his children for 
many generations to poverty, to the loss of social 
position, to the loss of all the advantages to which 
they were born ; he may reduce them all to servi- 
tude ; he may make it impossible for them to 
retrieve their former position, so that they can 
neither get oblivion of the past nor make a new 
beginning on the foundation of the old evils. But 
he cannot touch the souls of his children. "As I 
live, saith the Lord God " — hear the Prophet's 
more than solemn words — "the soul of every man 



SIR WALTER B E S A N T 

is mine." If the children commit sins and crimes, 
they will make it still harder for their descendants, 
but the crimes are not caused hj the sins of the 
fathers. " Amazing," said my reviewer. 

When I read the criticasters' paragraphs about 
novels " with a purpose," I ask myself what novel 
I have written that had not a purpose. Among 
my shorter stories Katherine Regina^ the most suc- 
cessful, shows the misery of being left destitute 
without special training or knowledge. 'I'he Inner 
House is an allegory in which it is shown that every- 
thing worth having in life depends upon death, the 
appointed end. One reviewer said it was an attack 
on socialism. Twenty others immediately followed 
suit, glad of a chance of noticing without reading. 
In Deacon s Orders is a study in religiosity, which 
is an emotion quite apart from religion. 

I'he Revolt of Man I brought out anonymously. 
It shows the world turned upside down. Women 
rule everything and do the whole of the intellectual 
work ; the Perfect Woman is worshipped instead 
of the Perfect Man. The reception of the book was 
at first extremely cold ; none of the reviews noticed 
it except slightingly ; it seemed as if it was going 
to fail absolutely. Then an article in the Saturday 
Review J written in absolute ignorance of the author- 
ship, started all the papers. I sent for my friend 
the editor to lunch with me, and confessed the 
truth. In five or six weeks we had got through 
about nine thousand copies. When I say that 
the advanced woman has never ceased to abuse 

211 



AUTOBIOGRAPllT OF 

the book and the author, its success will be 
understood. 

My course as a novelist — or anything else — is 
now nearly finished. I do not suppose I can, even 
in the tew years or weeks that may be left to me, 
do anything so good as the work that lies behind. 
But of all forms of work, there is none, to me at 
least, which could possibly be more delightful than 
that of fiction. One never wearies of the work ; it 
fills the brain with groups of people, all curious 
and all interesting, some most charming and some 
most villainous. I have never attempted what is 
called analvsis of character. Most so-called "ana- 
lyses" of character are mere laborious talks — at- 
tempts to do on many pages what should be done 
in single strokes and in easy dialogue. If my 
people do not reveal themselves by their acts and 
words, then I have failed. But, character is com- 
plex ? Quite so ; the most complex character can 
only be understood by acts and words. The ana- 
lysers start with a view of art which is not mine. I 
admit, however, that in the hands of one or two 
writers the results have been very fine. But it is 
not the art of Fielding, Smollett, Scott, Thackeray, 
Dickens, Reade. With all these writers the analysis 
of character takes the form of presentation of 
character by act and word. At the outset, all we 
know of a person in the tale is that he has done 
certain things. Then, by degrees, perhaps without 
the knowledge or the intention of the writer, the 
character talks and acts in such a way, under the 

212 



SIR TVALTER BESANT 

influence of conditions of birth, education, and sur- 
roundings, as to make us understand how complex 
is his character, how strangely mixed of good and 
evil. And this kind of art seems to me by far the 
higher and the truer, and to give better results, 
simply because no writer is able at the outset to say, 
" Thus and thus shall be the character of my hero ; 
so complex ; shot with so many hues ; so full of 
changes and surprises ; so shifting and so blown 
about here and there by every wind that sweeps 
his level." For my own part I like my char- 
acters to tread the stage speaking and acting so 
that all the world may understand them and their 
revelation of themselves in works and ways, in 
thoughts and speech. Mine, it will be objected, 
is a simple form of art. Is it not, however, the 
art of Dickens, Scott, and Fielding? Let me be- 
long to the school of the Masters ; let me be con- 
tent to follow humbly and at however great a 
distance in the lines laid down by them. 

To return to my work. " Why do you not give 
us," said one to me, " the fun and laughter of 'The 
Golden Butterfly ? " Well, you see, I was in my 
thirties then, and I am now in my sixties. The 
bubbling spirits of a sanguine and cheerful temper- 
ament made me happy and made of the world a 
Garden of Delight in those days. The spirits 
which enabled me to contribute to the cheerfulness 
of my readers when that book and certain other of 
my collaborations were written are gone. They 
cannot exist with my present time of life. What is 

213 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

left me is at best but a sobered cheerfulness. 
Yet, I think, my work has never yet been gloomy. 
Thank Heaven ! I have had less during my life, so 
far, to make me gloomy in the sixties than falls to 
the lot of many men in the thirties. Let me, in 
what remains of life, preserve cheerfulness, if only 
the cheerfulness of common gratitude. No one 
ought to acknowledge more profoundly than my- 
self the happiness that has been bestowed upon me ; 
the domestic peace ; the freedom from pecuniary 
troubles ; literary success in a measure unhoped for ; 
a name known all over the English-speaking world ; 
and circles of friends. And with them a whole 
army of enemies — exactly such enemies as one, at 
the outset, would desire above all things, to make : 
the spiritualistic fraud with his lying pretensions 
and his revelations revealing nothing from the other 
world ; the sickly sentimentalist blubbering over the 
righteous punishment of the sturdy rogue; and the 
shrieking sisterhood. They are all my enemies, 
and if, at the beginning of life, I had been asked 
what enemies I would make — could I have made 
a better choice ? 



214 



SIR WALTER BESANT 



Chapter XIP 



THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS AND OTHER 
SOCIETIES 

IT was in the month of September and the year 
1883 that a small company of twelve or fifteen 
men met in Mr. Scoones's chambers, Garrick 
Street, in order to form an association or society of 
men and women engaged in letters. What we were 
going to do; how we were going to do anything; 
what was wanted; why it was wanted — all these 
things were not only imperfectly understood, they 
were not understood at all. It was only felt 
vaguely, as it had been felt for fifty years, that the 
position of literary men was most unsatisfactory. 
The air was full of discontent and murmurs ; yet 
when any broke out into open accusation, the 

1 Sir Walter Besant, in a note at the end of the ninth chapter of 
his manuscript, refers to his intention to tell the story of the Society 
of Authors, and later alludes to the Society as though he had fulfilled 
this design. The account of the Society of Authors which follows 
was written in 1892, and was read by him at the annual meeting of 
that year, on his resignation of the chairmanship. Undoubtedly this 
is the account which he meant to include in his autobiography, though 
he would have made corrections and additions, most of which are called 
for by the lapse of ten years. All that Sir Walter Besant said is not 
included, for some of his words were due to the occasion, and had no 
direct bearing on the story of the Society in which he was so profoundly 
interested. 

215 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

grievance, in some mysterious way, became insub- 
stantial, and the charge, whatever it was, fell to the 
ground. It was impossible to find a remedy, be- 
cause the disease itself could not be diagnosed. 
Nevertheless the murmuring continued, and either 
rolled about the air in harmless thunder or broke 
out into epigrams. The discontent of authors may 
be traced back for a hundred and fifty years simply 
by the continuous beaded string of epigrams in 
which they have relieved their angry souls. 

We began, therefore, in our ignorance, with one 
or two quite safe general propositions. Nothing 
could be more simple, more unpretending, or more 
innocent than the general propositions of the So- 
ciety. We proposed, in short, three objects: (i) 
The maintenance, definition, and defence of literary 
property ; (2) the consolidation and amendment of 
the laws of domestic copyright ; (3) the promotion 
of international copyright. 

This statement or announcement of intention, it 
was hoped, would give no offence and excite no 
jealousies. We were naturally, at the outset, dis- 
trustful of ourselves ; uncertain as to the support 
we should receive ; timid as to our power of doing 
anything at all ; anxious not to do mischief Later 
experience has partly removed this timidity. We 
have ventured, and shall now continue, to speak 
openly and to publish and proclaim aloud the whole 
truth connected with the literary profession. 

Fortunatelv, we discovered very early in our pro- 
ceedings that even a document so modest as our 

216 



SIR JVALTER BESJNT 

first circular was giving dire offence in certain 
quarters. It was more than hinted that the results 
to all concerned would be disastrous to the last de- 
gree. That was nine years ago. What things have 
been said and done since that time ! Yet here we 
stand, not a whit the worse, any of us ; and how 
much better we are now going to consider. 1 say 
that this was a fortunate discovery, because it showed 
us that we should encounter opposition whatever 
we might do or say. Literary property, we were 
given to understand quite clearly, was to be con- 
sidered as a sacred ark which none but the priests — 
i.e.f those who had it already in their hands — might 
touch. This opposition in some quarters took the 
form of personal appeals to authors not to join the 
new association, while in many cases the fear of 
giving offence and suffering loss in consequence 
caused — and even still causes — some to hold 
aloof. 

Having, then, produced our prospectus, we set 
to work to gain the adhesion of as many leaders in 
literature as we could. Our first and greatest suc- 
cess — a success which won for us at the outset re- 
spectful consideration — was the acceptance by Lord 
Tennyson of the presidency. Had we elected, or 
been compelled to accept, any lesser man than the 
Laureate, our progress would have been far more 
difficult. With him at our head we were from the 
first accepted seriously. 

Our next success lay in the extremely respectable 
and representative body of members who consented 

217 



AUTOBIOGRAPHT OF 

to join us as our vice-presidents. As a representa- 
tive body, no list could have been more gratifying. 
Poetry was represented — to name only a few — by 
the second Lord Lytton, Sir Theodore Martin, and 
Matthew Arnold ; science by Huxley, Lord Ray- 
leigh, Michael Foster, Tyndall, Norman Lockyer, 
Sir Henry Thompson, and Burdon Sanderson ; 
history by Edward Dicey, Froude, Sir Henry 
Maine, Max Miiller, Sir Henry Rawlinson, Dr. 
Russell, and Professor Seeley ; theology by the 
Bishop of Gloucester, Cardinal Manning, Dean 
Kitchin, Dr. Martineau, Archdeacon Farrar, Dean 
Vaughan, and the Rev. Henry White ; the Army 
by Lord Wolseley, Sir Charles Warren, and Sir 
Charles Wilson ; fiction by William Black, R. D. 
Blackmore, Wilkie Collins, Charles Reade, Char- 
lotte Yonge ; dramatic literature by Hermann Meri- 
vale, John Hollingshead, and Moy Thomas ; 
journalism by George Augustus Sala ; in fact, every- 
thing was represented. 

In the first year of our existence, again, another 
very curious and unexpected piece of good fortune 
happened to us : Sir Robert Fowler, then Lord 
Mayor of London, invited the Society, as a Society, 
to a banquet at the Mansion House. The im- 
portance to us, at that moment, of such public 
recognition cannot be exaggerated. We were sud- 
denly, and unexpectedly, dragged out into the light 
and exhibited to the world. And what with news- 
paper controversies, publications, public meetings, 
and public dinners, we have been very much before 

218 



SIR IF A LT E R B ES A N T 

the world ever since. But our first public recogni- 
tion we owe to Sir Robert Fowler. 

As yet, however, we were an army of officers 
without any rank and file. We had to enlist re- 
cruits. It has been our object ever since, not so 
much to persuade people that we are proposing and 
actually doing good work, as to persuade them that 
it is the bounden duty of every one engaged in the 
literary calling to support the only association which 
exists in this country for the maintenance and defi- 
nition of their property. The slow growth of the 
Society, in spite of all the encouragement we re- 
ceived, shows the difficulties we had in this direc- 
tion. Take the figures from the annual reports. 
In the first year, 1884, there were only 68 paying 
members; in 1886 there were only 153 — and that 
in the third year of our existence; in 1888 there 
were 240; in 1889, 372; in 1891, 662; and in 
1892, this year, up to the present day, there have 
been 870, which of course does not include 25 who 
have paid up life membership, 20 honorary mem- 
bers, and 50 who may or may not pay, and if they 
do not, will cease to be members. So slowly have 
we grown ; so difficult has it been to persuade those 
who actually benefit by our labours openly to join 
our company. 

We met at first in Mr. Scoones's chambers. Gar- 
rick Street. After a few months we met in the 
offices of our first secretary and solicitor, Mr. Tris- 
tram Valentine. Then we took a step in advance, 
and engaged a modest office of our own. It was on 

219 



AUTO BI G RA P HT OF 

the second floor of a house in Cecil Street, over the 
office of an income tax collector, who never asked 
us for anything. We had — when we took that step 

— really no more than one hundred members ; some 
of us had to become life members in order to find the 
preliminary expenses. How modest that office was ! 
How simple was its furniture ! Yet it is never un- 
pleasant for a self-made man to look back at the 
beginnings, or for the self-made society — which we 
certainly are — to consider the day of small things. 

This was in February 1885, after more than 
a year of existence. We were still floundering ; we 
were still in uncertainty ; we had not yet found out 
even the first step in the right direction. M ost fortu- 
nately we were prudent enough not to commit any 
extravagances. We were restrained from follies, I 
think, by the lawyers who were on our committee. 
Happily, we brought forward no charges, denounced 
no persons, and condemned no systems. We kept 
very quiet, considering the situation, making inves- 
tigations and acquiring knowledge. Nothing, I 
now perceive, more clearly proves the general dis- 
content among men and women of letters than the 
fact that, though we did nothing all this time — or 
next to nothing — our numbers, as you have seen, 
steadily, though slowly, increased. We had now, 
however, obtained the services — the gratuitous 
services — of a gentleman whose name must always 
be remembered in connection with our earlv history 

— Mr. Alexander Gait Ross, who became our 
honorary secretary. 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

At this time I, who had been preliminary chair- 
man during the first organisation of the Society, 
retired, and the late Mr. Cotter Morison was elected 
chairman. Let me take this opportunity of acknowl- 
edging the resolution, the wisdom, and the modera- 
tion with which Mr. Cotter Morison filled that 
post. The mere fact that a man of his great per- 
sonal character was our chairman greatly increased 
the confidence of the public. He resigned the post 
a year or two later, when he was attacked by the 
disease which killed him. Great as was the loss 
to literature by his death, it was a blow to our- 
selves from which it seems to me that we have 
never wholly recovered. Even now, in all times 
of difficulty, I instinctively feel that if Cotter 
Morison were only with us, the difficulty would 
be far more easily faced, and far more wisely sur- 
mounted. The place of Mr. Cotter Morison was 
taken by the late Sir Frederick Pollock, who, 
from the very beginning, had shown a keen in- 
terest in the prospect and progress of the Society. 
His tenure of office was short, and not marked by 
anything more than the steady advance of our 
objects. On his retirement, owing also to ill-health, 
the committee did me the honour of electing me 
to take the post. 

Now, when it became gradually known that such 
a society as this existed, that a secretary was in the 
office all day long, and that he held consultations 
for nothing with all comers, all those who were in 
trouble over their books, all those who had grievances 

221 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

and quarrels, began to come to us for advice and 
assistance. In this way began that part of the 
Society's work which is generally understood by the 
world ; and in this way began our early troubles. 
Because, you see, it was a very easy thing to hear 
and to receive a case ; the difficulty was how to find 
a remedy or to obtain justice where the case de- 
manded either. We did sometimes find a remedy, 
and we did obtainjustice in many cases. But partly 
from want of funds, and partly from the unwilling- 
ness of victims to take action, several cases fell to 
the ground. 

After a lijitle time we abandoned our first organi- 
sation of vice-presidents and committee, and sub- 
stituted a council. We also incorporated ourselves 
into a company. We had the good fortune to se- 
cure the services of Mr. Underdovvn, Q.C., as our 
honorary counsel, and of Messrs, Field, Roscoe & 
Co. as our solicitors. Turning back to our first 
circular, and to the three divisions of work laid 
down, let us take the international copyright clause 
first. At the stage at which the American Bill had 
then arrived, very little could be done, except, as 
our American friends strongly recommended, to stop 
as much as lay in our power the calling of names. 
We had, in fact, as was pointed out by Mr. Brander 
Matthews and other Americans, been doing on this 
side exactly what the Americans were doing on their 
side — pirating books. It was absurd to keep 
calling the Americans thieves and pirates while our 
people did exactly the same thing on a smaller scale. 



SIR rVJLTER BESANT 

It exasperated Americans and weakened the efforts 
of those who were manfully fighting in the cause 
of international honesty. Such influence as we 
possessed we brought to bear in this direction, 
with, one hopes and believes, a certain allaying of 
irritation.^ 

As regards the consolidation of the copyright 
laws, our action has been more direct and far more 
important. In fact, there are some who think that 
our action under this head is more important to the 
cause of literature than anything else that we have 
achieved or attempted, for in this direction there was 
no hesitation or any doubt as to what was wanted. 
Things chaotic had to be reduced to order, and only 
a new Act could do it. We appointed a copyright 
committee, consisting of Sir Frederick Pollock, 
Mr. Lely, Mr. Fraser Rae, Mr. Ross, and Mr. W. 
Oliver Hodges as honorary secretary, and with the 
assistance of Mr. Underdown, our honorary counsel, 
and Mr. Rolt, of the Inner Temple, a new Copy- 
right Bill was drafted. This Bill was submitted to 
the London Chamber of Commerce for their con- 
sideration, and adopted by that body. It was then 
introduced into the House of Lords by Lord 
Monkswell, and read a first time. It will be a great 
thing in the history of the Society to record that it 
has actually accomplished the consolidation of the 

^ The United States of America granted copyright under certain 
conditions to British authors in 1891. This measure, though enacted 
at the date upon which Sir Walter Besant was writing, had not yet 
produced practical effect. 

223 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

various Copyright Acts into one working and intel- 
ligible Act.^ 

Now all this time we were receiving continually 
accounts, agreements, letters, and cases. The daily 
correspondence had become very heavy. We there- 
fore gave Mr. Ross a coadjutor in Mr. James 
Stanley Little, who was our secretary for two years. 
He retired owing to pressure of his own literary 
work, and was succeeded by Mr. S. Squire Sprigge, 
who remained with us for four years, until our work 
became too much for him, taken with his other en- 
gagements. He therefore left us, but remains on 
our committee. One must not omit to acknowl- 
edge that during his four years of office he was the 
spring and soul of the Society, and that our rapid 
advance during that time is mainly owing to his 
energies. He was succeeded by Mr. G. Herbert 
Thring. 

Meantime we had been slowly arriving at the 
comprehension of the fact that, in order to defend 
literary property, we must understand exactly what 
it is, of what extent, how it is created, how it is 
administered, how it should be safeguarded. The 
first step in advance was when, at a public meeting, 
held at Willis's Rooms, we laid down the sound 

1 The Bill was read a second time in the House of Lords about ten 
years ago ; and though it was not proceeded with further, it became 
the starting-point for future eftbrt. In 1896 a non-contentious amending 
Bill was drafted by the Society of Authors, and read in the House of 
Lords, and in 1898 Lord Thring consented to draft a Bill dealing with 
literary, dramatic, and musical copyright. This Bill will probably 
form the basis of future legislation. 

224 



SIR fV A LT E R B ES A N T 

principle that publishers' accounts, like those of any- 
other enterprise in which two or more persons are 
jointly interested, must be subject to audit, as a 
simple right and a simple precaution. This right 
was publicly acknowledged by Messrs. Longman & 
Co., who were followed by other publishers, but not 
by all. Since then we have devoted a great deal of 
attention to ascertaining exactly what the copyright 
of a book and its publication may mean as actual 
property. There has been a stream of abuse, 
detraction, and wilful misrepresentation of our 
work poured upon us continually. Chiefly, we 
have been reviled for daring to ask what our own 
property means. This abuse shows, first, the hos- 
tility of those who desire to conceal and hush up 
the truth as regards the buying and selling of books. 
That is a matter of course; such hostility was to be 
expected, and, with all the misrepresentations that 
can be devised and invented, must be taken as part 
of the day's work. It has been, as you perhaps 
know, a good part of my day's work, during the 
last five years, to silence this opposition. I am 
happy to think that every such misrepresentation 
published in a newspaper or in a magazine has only 
resulted in an accession of new members and in an 
increase in public confidence. But, in addition to 
the opposition of interested persons, we have had 
to encounter a very unexpected and remarkable op- 
position from those who ought to be our own 
friends — certain authors and certain journalists. 
Into the history and motives and reason of this 

IS 225 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

opposition I should like with your permission to 
inquire. 

There has existed for a hundred and fifty years 
at least, and there still lingers among us, a feeling 
that it is unworthy the dignity of letters to take any 
account at all of the commercial or pecuniary side. 
No one, you will please to remark, has ever thought 
of reproaching the barrister, the solicitor, the physi- 
cian, the surgeon, the painter, the sculptor, the 
actor, the singer, the musician, the architect, the 
chemist, the engineer, the clergyman, or any other 
kind of brain worker that one can mention, with 
taking fees or salaries or money for his work ; nor 
does any one reproach these men with looking after 
their fees and getting rich it they can. Nor does 
any one suggest that to consider the subject of pay- 
ment very carefully — to take ordinary precautions 
against dishonesty — brings discredit on any one 
who does so ; nor does any one call that barrister 
unworthy of the Bar who expects large fees in pro- 
portion to his name and his ability ; nor does any 
one call that painter a tradesman whose price ad- 
vances with his reputation. I beg you to consider 
this point very carefully, for the moment any author 
begins to make practical investigation into the value 
— the monetary value — of the work which he puts 
upon the market, a hundred voices arise from those 
of his own craft as well as from those who live by 
administering his property — voices which cry out 
upon the sordidness, the meanness, the degradation 
of turning literature into a trade. Wc hear, I say, 

226 



SIR JV ALTER BESANT 

this kind of talk from our own ranks — though, 
one must own, chiefly from those who never had an 
opportunity of discovering what literary property 
means. Does, I ask, this cry mean anything at 
all ? Well, first of all, it manifestly means a 
confusion of ideas. There are two values of 
literary work — distinct, separate, not commensura- 
ble — they cannot be measured, they cannot be 
considered together. The one is the literary value 
of a work — its artistic, poetic, dramatic value, its 
value of accuracy, of construction, of presentation, 
of novelty, of style, of magnetism. On that value 
is based the real position of every writer in his own 
generation, and the estimate of him, should he 
survive, for generations to follow. I do not greatly 
blame those who cry out upon the connection of 
literature with trade : they are jealous, and rightly 
jealous, for the honour of letters. We will acknow- 
ledge so much. But the confusion lies in not 
understanding that every man who takes money 
for whatever he makes or does may be regarded, in 
a way, and not offensively, as a tradesman, but that 
the making of a thing need have nothing whatever 
to do with the price it will command ; and that this 
price in the case of a book cannot be measured by 
the literary or artistic value. 

In other words, while an artist is at work upon a 
poem, a drama, or a romance, this aspect of his 
work, and this alone, is in his mind, otherwise his 
work would be naught. But once finished and 
ready for production, then comes in the other value 

227 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

— the commercial value, which is a distinct thing. 
Here the artist ceases and the man of business 
begins. Either the man of business begins at this 
point or the next steps of that artist infallibly bring 
him to disaster, or at least the partial loss of that 
commercial value. Remember that any man who 
has to sell a thing must make himself acquainted 
with its value, or he will be — what? Call it what 
you please — over-reached, deluded, cheated. That 
is a recognised rule in every other kind of business. 
Let us do our best to make it recognised in our 
own. 

Apart from this confusion of ideas between liter- 
ary and commercial value, there is another and a 
secondary reason for this feeling. For two hun- 
dred years, at least, contempt of every kind has 
been poured upon the literary hack, who is, poor 
wretch, the unsuccessful author. Why ? We do 
not pour contempt upon the unsuccessful painter who 
has to make the pot boil with pictures at 15J. each. 
Clive Newcome came down to that, and a very 
pitiful, tearful scene in the story it is — full of pity 
and of tears. If he had been a literary hack, where 
would have been the pity and the tears.'' In my 
experience at the Society, I have come across many 
most pitiful cases, where the man who has failed is 
doomed to lead a life which is one long tragedy of 
grinding, miserable, underpaid work, with no hope 
and no relief possible — one long tragedy of endur- 
ance and hardship. I am not accusing any one; I 
call no names ; very likely such a man gets all he 

228 



SIR JVALTER BESANT 

deserves ; his are the poor wages of incompetence ; 
his is the servitude of the lowest work ; his is the 
contumely of hopeless poverty ; his is the derision 
of the critic. But we laugh at such a wretch, and 
call him a literary hack. Why, I ask, when we 
pity the unsuccessful in every other line, do we 
laugh at and despise the unsuccessful author? 

Once more, this contempt — real or pretended — 
for money, what does it mean ? Sir Walter Scott 
did not despise the income which he made by his 
books, nor did Byron, nor did Dickens, Thackeray, 
George Eliot, Charles Reade, Wilkie Collins, Ma- 
caulay, nor, in fact, any single man or woman in the 
history of letters who has ever succeeded. This 
pretended contempt, then — does it belong to those 
who have not succeeded ? It is sometimes assumed 
by them ; more often one finds it in articles written 
for certain papers by sentimental ladies who are 
not authors. Wherever it is found, it is always 
lingering somewhere ; always we come upon this 
feeling, ridiculous, senseless, and baseless — that it 
is beneath the dignity of an author to manage his 
business matters as a man of business should, with 
the same regard for equity in his agreement, the 
same resolution to know what is meant by both 
sides of an agreement, and the same jealousy as to 
assigning the administration of his property. 

Again, how did the contempt rise.^ It came to 
us as a heritage of the last century. In the course 
of our investigations into the history of literary 
property — the result of which will, I hope, appear 

229 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

some day in a volume form — I recently caused a 
research to be made into the business side of litera- 
ture in the last century. Publishers were not then 
men of education and knowledge, as many of them 
are at the present moment ; they were not advised 
by scholars, men of taste and intuition ; the market, 
compared with that of the present day, was incon- 
ceivably small ; there were great risks, due to all 
these causes. The practice, therefore, was, in view 
of these risks, to pay the author so much for his 
book right out, and to expect a successful book 
to balance, and more than balance, one that was 
unsuccessful. Therefore they bought the books 
they published at the lowest price they could per- 
suade the author to accept. Therefore — the con- 
sequence follows like the next line in Euclid — the 
author began to appear to the popular imagination 
as a suppliant standing hat in hand beseeching the 
generosity of the bookseller. Physician and barris- 
ter stood upright, taking the recognised fee. The 
author bent a humble back, holding his hat in one 
humble hand, while he held out the other humble 
hand for as many guineas as he could get. That, I 
say, was the popular view of the author. And it 
still lingers among us. There are, in other callings, 
if we think of it, other professional contempts. 
Everybody acknowledges that teaching is a noble 
work, but everybody formerly despised the school- 
master because he was always flogging boys — no 
imagination can regard with honour and envy the 
man who is all day long caning and flogging. The 

230 



SIR tVALTER BESANT 

law is a noble study, but everybody formerly de- 
spised the attorney, with whom the barrister would 
neither shake hands nor sit at table. Medicine 
is a noble study, but the surgeon was formerly 
despised because in bygone days he was closely 
connected with the barber. Do not let us be 
surprised, therefore, if the author, who had to take 
whatever was given to him, came to be regarded as 
a poor helpless suppliant. 

The kind of language even now sometimes used 
illustrates a lingering of the old feeling. We con- 
stantly read here and there of the generosity of a 
publisher. My friends, let us henceforth resolve 
to proclaim that we do not want generosity ; that 
we will not have it ; that we are not beggars and 
suppliants, and that what we want is the adminis- 
tration of our own property — or its purchase — on 
fair, just, and honourable terms. Let us remember 
that the so-called generosity must be either a dole 
— an alms — over and above his just claim, in 
which case it degrades the author to take it, and 
robs the publisher who gives it; or it is a pay- 
ment under the just value, when it degrades the 
publisher who gives it, while it robs the author 
who takes it. 

I return to the history of the Society. When 
our office was discovered, so to speak, by the out- 
side world, I have said that there began to be 
poured in upon us a continuous stream, which has 
never ceased, of agreements, accounts, proposals, 
estimates, and letters between publishers and au- 

231 



AUTOBIOGRAPHT OF 

thors. From the examination and the comparison 
of these documents, from other matter obtained of 
printers, from communications made to us by per- 
sons formerly engaged in pubHshing offices, and 
from every possible source of information, we ar- 
rived at a knowledge of the business side of litera- 
ture which is certainly unrivalled by that possessed 
by any man, even by any man actually engaged in 
publishing. We know especially by experience 
that a system which demands blind confidence on 
one side not only invites a betrayal of that confi- 
dence, but must inevitably lead to such a betrayal. 
There is no body of men in the world who can 
be trusted not to cheat should a man say to them, 
" Take my property. Do what you please with 
it. Bring me what you like for my share. I 
shall never inquire into your statements or audit 
your accounts." This is what has been done, 
and is still done every day. That man invites 
fraud who says beforehand that he will not ques- 
tion or doubt the returns. 

This being so, we were not at all surprised to 
find that frauds were being carried on very exten- 
sively. Not universally. We have always most 
carefully made that necessary reservation. We have 
been constantly accused of charging all publishers 
as a body with dishonesty. I say again, that five 
or six years ago, when we had acquired some knowl- 
edge of what was going on, we found — with this 
reservation always carefully insisted upon — a wide- 
spread practice of fraudulent accounts. Is it neces- 

232 



SIR fF J L r E R B ES A N T 

sary to enumerate the methods pursued, which were 
as various as the tricks of the conjurer ? There 
was the overcharge of the cost of production — very 
common indeed ; there was the charge for advertise- 
ments which never appeared, or were exchanged 
and never paid for — also very common ; there was 
the insertion of an enormous estimate of cost of 
production in the agreement, which the author, 
after he had signed, could not set aside ; there were 
clauses in the agreement so worded and so mixed 
up that the author did not know what he gave 
away ; there were charges for things that ought not 
to be charged — publisher's reader, publisher's lists, 
publisher's travellers, all kinds of things ; there was 
the royalty so designed as to give three times and 
four times — any number of times — to the pub- 
lisher that it gave to the author ; there was the pur- 
chase of a valuable work for next to nothing. One 
could find instances by the dozen on looking into 
the Society's case books, but very considerable im- 
provement has taken place of late in respect to 
these methods, solely in consequence of the action 
of the Society. 

Without going into court more than once or 
twice (though in a great many instances an action 
has been proposed as an alternative), we have suc- 
ceeded not only in procuring substantial justice in 
many cases for our clients, but we have also done a 
great deal to put a stop to the former prevalent 
abuses. A point in our favour has been the ex- 
treme moderation of our demands. We have 

233 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

claimed, in fact, so far, only three points : (i) That 
we must have the right of audit ; (2) that in any 
agreement based on royalties we must know what 
the agreement gives to either side ; and (3) that 
there must be no secret profits. We prepared and 
published a book, the like of which, it is certain, 
has never before appeared in any country. It was 
called the Methods of Publishing. In this book a 
specimen of every known form of publishing was 
taken from agreements and accounts actually in our 
possession. Nothing was invented ; they were 
actual real agreements that were quoted. With 
each agreement the meaning of the various clauses 
was explained. It is a book of the greatest value 
to every one who wants to know how to conduct 
his own business for himself, and desires to avoid 
pitfalls and traps and the many dangers pointed out. 
This book, however, useful as it was, proved to be 
insufficient. There was still wanting something to 
supplement the information contained in it. By 
the comparison of any agreement submitted to an 
author with the corresponding agreement contained 
in this book, he might come to a pretty safe conclu- 
sion as to the value or fairness of his own. But he 
wanted more ; he wanted to know, as nearly as pos- 
sible, the cost of producing his own book, the man- 
ner in which it was placed upon the market, and 
the results under certain given conditions. That 
information we found for him. It cost us a very 
great deal of patience and of time. You can hardly 
understand the trouble it was to get at the figures ; 

234 



SIR JTALTER BESANT 

at last they were obtained and passed by three — 
or perhaps four — firms of responsible printers. Of 
course, we do not say that we have found the exact 
cost, because there is no such thing. A printer's 
bill is elastic, and varies from firm to firm, and time 
to time ; but the figures are, if anything, above the 
mark, and some accounts have been sent in to us 
where the details were below our figures. 

By the publication of this book, called the Cost 
of Production^ together with that called the Methods 
of Publication^ we have, I submit, rendered a very 
signal service to the independence of the author. 
He now understands what kind of property he holds 
in his MS. He can say, " Should this work prove 
successful — commercially successful — it will pro- 
duce so much for the first thousand, so much for the 
second, and so on. What share does the publisher 
claim for the distribution, collection, and adminis- 
tration of this work ? " At all events, if circum- 
stances oblige him to take what is unfair, he will 
know it; he will speak of it — the thing will be- 
come noised abroad, the reputation of that publisher 
will suflfer. What we have done is to throw light 
— always more and more light — into every part 
and every detail of our own business. We have 
enabled authors, in a word, to meet men of 
business as men of business. 

I hasten to complete this history by the brief 
record of the points of less importance. We have 
ascertained, by an inquiry conducted for us in the 
most important colonies, that there was, before the 

235 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

passing of the American Copyright Act, a consider- 
able trade in pirated books. We have called the 
attention of the Minister for the Colonies to this 
trade, and steps have been taken to stop the piracy. 
We have investigated and published an account of 
the administration of the Civil List from its begin- 
ning. We have founded for our own purposes 
a paper which is devoted entirely to the accumu- 
lation of facts and the dissemination of teaching 
in our own business relations. 

Our office has become the recognised refuge for 
all who are in trouble or doubt. People come to 
us for advice on all subjects connected with literary 
property. The cases always in the secretary's hands 
average at any moment about a dozen. As fast as 
one is cleared off, another one comes in. The cor- 
respondence increases daily ; from all parts of the 
countrv and from the colonies the letters pour in. 

We have been accused of fostering the ambitions 
of the incapable, and of helping to flood the market 
with trash. Far from it ; we dissuade by every 
means in our power the incapable ; we have readers 
who give them the plain truth ; we advertise warn- 
ings against paying for the publication of MSS. 
But I confess that we can do little to keep down the 
swelling stream of aspirants. Thousands of pens 
are flying over the paper at this moment and every 
moment, producing bad novels and worse poetry. 
We check some of them ; the rest must learn by 
bitter disappointment. Do not, however, let us talk 
about flooding the market; that is a mere conven- 

236 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

tional phrase. Thousands of bad books may be 
produced, but they never get circulated ; nobody 
buys them ; they drop still-born from the press ; 
they swell the statistics alone. 

To sum up, we have taken steps to reduce our 
copyright law from chaos to order ; we have investi- 
gated and made public the various methods of 
publishing, and have shown what each means ; we 
have placed in the hands of every author the means 
of ascertaining for himself what his property may 
mean ; we have examined and exposed the facts 
connected with the Civil Pension List. What do 
we intend to do in the future ? Here I must speak 
for myself. First, I look for the enlargement of 
the Society to four times, ten times, its present 
numbers. Every one who writes — the journalists 
who lead the thought of the world, the teachers of 
all kinds, the scientific men, the medical men, the 
theologians, the creators in imaginative work — 
every one who writes a single book should consider 
it his duty to belong to us. With this extension 
of our numbers we shall create funds for special 
purposes, for fighting actions if necessary. There 
are certain disputed points which can only be settled 
in the courts. We shall give our journal wider 
aims. 

I should very much like to see established an 
institute akin to the Law Institute, but what I 
want, even more than the institute, is a Pension 
Fund. That, I see plainly, is above all to be de- 
sired. I want a Pension Fund such as that which 

237 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

the Societe des Gens de Lettres in Paris has estab- 
lished, where every one in his turn receives a pension, 
and it is not a dole or a charity, but a right. The 
member is not obliged to take that pension ; if he 
chooses, he can refuse it ; then it goes to swell the 
pensions of those who want the assistance. We 
have been too much occupied during these last years 
for this fund to be so much as started. Perhaps, 
however, the committee may see their way at no 
distant period to attempt the thing. A Pension 
Fund is absolutely necessary for the completion of 
the independence of literature.^ 

There were many other societies in which I was 
interested. Those which were strictly philanthropic 
I reserve for another chapter. I was initiated into 
freemasonry as far back as 1862. On my return to 
England I joined a lodge. I have never been an 
enthusiast for the rites and ceremonies of the craft, 
but I have always understood its great capabilities 
as a social and religious force. Properly carried out, 
the freemason has friends everywhere, and in case 
of need, brethren of the same fraternity are bound 
by vow to assist him. Every lodge is a benefit club; 
the members are bound to each other by the vows 
and obligations of a medifcval guild. The craft has 
developed a species of doctrine, vague and without 
a defined creed, which is to some of its members a 
veritable religion. It is, above all, a religion which 
requires no priest, no Church standing between man 

1 The Pension Fund of the Society of Authors has since been started. 
23S 



SIR JVALTER BESANT 

and his Creator ; it does not recognise any super- 
stitious or supernatural claims. It is therefore a 
bulwark against the Roman Catholic religion or any 
Romanising practices ; and, as such, is very properly 
excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church. 

The origins of Masonry are imperfectly under- 
stood. This I had always felt to be a serious defect, 
although, the craft being what it is acknowledged to 
be, the origin is not an essential point. However, 
there was existing a small — a very small — society 
called the Masonic Archaeological Institute. Of 
this I became the honorary secretary. We had 
papers read ; some of them were useful, some were 
rubbish ; after a while I handed over the papers and 
my office to Mr. Haliburton, of Nova Scotia, who 
was then living in London, and I heard no more 
about the institute, which died a natural death. 
But some eighteen years later there was established 
an archaeological lodge consisting of nine persons, 
of whom I was one. It was proposed to carry this 
on as a medium for historical papers on all points 
connected with the craft. The secretary, one of the 
nine, has developed this lodge until it has, besides 
its original members, some two thousand corre- 
sponding members scattered about the whole world. 
Once at Albany, New York, I received a visit from 
one of the corresponding members, who got together 
a few Freemasons of that city to give me a welcome. 
The thing was a trifle ; but it made me realise the 
great success and the widespread influence of the 
Lodge " Quatuor Coronati." 

239 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

One more society. In 1879 °^ 1880 a little 
company of a dozen or so met at a certain tavern 
and dined together, the dinner being the foundation 
of the Rabelais Club. This for eight years or so 
was a highly flourishing club. We dined together 
about six times a year ; we had no speeches and but 
one toast — "The Master." We mustered some 
seventy or eighty members, and we used to lay on 
the table leaflets, verses, and all kinds of literary 
triflings. These were afterwards collected and 
formed three volumes called Recreations of the Ra- 
belais Club^ only a hundred copies of each being 
printed. Among the members were Edwin Abbey, 
R. C. Christie (author of the life of Etienne Dolet), 
George Du Maurier, Thomas Hardy, Bret Harte, 
Colonel John Hay, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry 
Irving, Henry James, C. G. Leland, Earl Lytton, 
Lord Houghton, James Payn, J. E. Millais, Pro- 
fessor Palmer, Sir Frederick Pollock, Walter Pol- 
lock, Saintsbury, Sala, W. F. Smith (latest and best 
translator of Rabelais), R. Louis Stevenson, Alma- 
Tadema, Toole, Herbert Stephen, H. D. Traill, 
and Woolner. 

The Recreations contain a good deal that is in- 
different and a good deal that is good. Among the 
latter is some truly excellent fooling by Sir Frederick 
Pollock; there are verses by Du Maurier; there 
are verses by Professor Palmer — notably a short 
collection called " Arabesques from the Bazaars," 
supposed to be narrated by one Colonel Abdullah. 
Of these I quote one called: — 

240 



SIR WALTER BESJNT 

THE STORY OF THE ASTROLOGER. 

** Alack a day, for the days of old 

When heads were clever and hearts were true. 
And a Caliph scattered stores of gold 
On men, my All, like me and you. 

" Haroun was moody, Haroun was sad. 
And he drank a glass of wine or two ; 
But it only seemed to make him mad, 

And the cup at the Sakis' head he threw. 

** Came Yahya ^ in ; and he dodged the glass 
That all too near his turban flew ; 
And he bowed his head, and he said, ' Alas! 
Your Majesty seems in a pretty stew ! ' 

<* ' And well I may,' the monarch said ; 

' And so, my worthy friend, would you. 
If you knew that you must needs be dead 
And buried, perhaps, in a day or two. 

"* For the man who writes the almanacks — 
Ez Zadkiel, a learned Jew — 
Has found, amongst other distressing facts. 
That the days I have left upon earth are kw. 

'" Call up the villain! ' the vizier cried, 

' That he may have the reward that 's due. 
For having, the infidel, prophesied 
A thing that is plainly quite untrue.' 

"The Caliph waved his hand, and soon 
A dozen dusky eunuchs flew ; 
And back in a trice before Haroun 
They set the horoscopic Jew, 

1 Yahya the Barmecide was Haroun al Raschid's Prime Minister. 
He was the father of Jaafer, whose incognito walks through Bagdad 
are a favourite theme in The Arabian Nights. 
i6 241 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

*' ' Now tell me, sirrah ! ' says Yahya, * since 
From astral knowledge so well you knew 
The term of the life of our sovereign prince. 
How many years are left to you ? * 

** * May Allah lengthen the vizier's days ! 
His Highness' loss all men would rue ; 
Some eighty years, my planet says. 
Is the number that I shall reach unto.* 

** A single stroke of Yahya's sword 

Has severed the Jew's neck quite clean through — 
* Now tell me, sire, if the fellow's word 
Seems, after that, in the least bit true ? ' 

** Haroun he smiled, and a purse of gold 
He handed over to Yahya true ; 
And the heedless corpse, all white and cold. 
The eunuchs in the gutter threw. 

*' What loyalty that act displays. 

Combined with a sense of humour too — 
Ah, Ali ! those were palmy days ! 

And those Barmecides, what a lot they knew ! " 

In 1889 the Rabelais Club fell to pieces. Perhaps 
we had gone on long enough ; perhaps we spoiled 
the club by admitting visitors. However, the club 
languished and died. 



242 



SIR M^ALTER BESANT 



Chapter XIII 

PHILANTHROPIC WORK 

IT is instructive to consider how I dropped with- 
out any effort on my own part, even uncon- 
sciously, into philanthropic work and effort. 

It all began with a novel. In 1880 and in 1881 
I spent a great deal of time walking about the mean 
monotony of the East End of London. It was not 
a new field to me. That is to say, I had already 
seen some of it — the river-side. Hackney, White- 
chapel, and Bethnal Green ; but I had never before 
realised the vast extent of the eastern city, its 
wonderful collection of human creatures ; its pos- 
sibilities ; the romance that lies beneath its mono- 
tony ; the tragedies and the comedies, the dramas 
that are always playing themselves out in this huge 
hive of working bees. 

Gradually, out of the whole, as sometimes happens 
when the gods are favourable, a few figures detached 
themselves from the crowd and stood before me to 
be drawn. And presently I understood that one of 
the things very much wanted in this great place was 
a centre of organised recreation, orderly amusement, 
and intellectual and artistic culture. So I pictured 
an heiress going down to the place under the disguise 
of a dressmaker, and I showed how little by little 

243 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

the same idea was forced upon her ; how she was 
aided in this discovery by a young man who by 
birth, not by education, belonged to the place ; and 
how in obedience to their invitation the Palace of 
Delight arose. The rest has been told a hundred 
times. Sir Edmund Currie, trying to create such a 
place, used the book as a text-book. The Palace 
was built. It was opened in 1887. 

I have often been asked what the Palace has 
done. It has done a great deal ; but it has not done 
one-quarter, not one-tenth part, of what it might 
have done. It was built and furnished with a noble 
hall, a swimming bath, a splendid organ, a complete 
gymnasium, one of the finest Hbrary buildings in 
London, a winter garden, art schools, and a lecture 
room. Unfortunately a polytechnic was tacked on 
to it; the original idea of a place of recreation was 
mixed up with a place of education. 

More money was wanted. I hoped that Sir 
Edmund, who was greatly respected in the City, 
would, as he half promised, boom it in the City. 
But he did not. However, we started with all the 
things mentioned above, and with billiard-rooms, 
with a girls' social side, with a debating society, 
with clubs for all kinds of things — cricket, foot- 
ball, rambles, and the like ; we had delightful balls 
in the great hall, we had concerts and organ recitals, 
the girls gave dances in their social rooms ; there 
was a literary society ; we had lectures and entertain- 
ments, orchestral performances and part singing ; 
nothing could have been better than our start. 

244 



SIR TVJLTER BESANT 

We had a library committee, of which I was the 
chairman. We collected together about fifteen 
thousand volumes — that is to say, we made a most 
excellent beginning. Everything did not go on 
quite well. At the billiard tables, which were very 
popular, the young men took to betting, and it 
was thought best to stop billiards altogether. The 
literary club proved a dead failure; not a soul, 
while I was connected with the Palace, showed the 
least literary ability or ambition. Still the suc- 
cesses far outweighed the failures. 

Then we heard that the Drapers' Company pro- 
posed to take over the Palace and to run it at 
their own cost and expense. I have no wish to ap- 
pear to be bringing charges against the Drapers' 
Company. Let me, however, instance their treat- 
ment of the library. We gave them, as I said, fif- 
teen thousand volumes in good condition. We had 
three ladies as librarians — most efficient librarians 
they were. They ruled over the rough people 
who came to the library with a gentle but a steady 
hand. There was no such thing as a row while 
they were there. Now, such a library costs, in the 
maintenance of the fabric, in the binding and pre- 
servation of the books, in salaries, wages, lights, 
cleaning, newspapers and magazines, from ^^1,000 
to ^1,200 a year. The Company took over the 
Palace on an understanding that it should be kept 
up. The library was an integral part of the 
Palace. What have they done ? They have dis- 
missed the librarians, they have refused the money 

245 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

necessary" for binding and preserving the books, 
they have bought no new books and have made 
no appeal for any, they have appointed no library 
committee, they have reduced the staff to a man and 
a boy. All those books out of our fifteen thou- 
sand which are in demand are dropping to pieces ; 
and the Company are trying to hand over the lovely 
building, which is, I say, an integral part of the 
Palace, to the poverty-stricken ratepayers of the 
parish. So much for the library. 

As regards the recreative side, the Company can- 
not put down the concerts ; but they have stopped 
the baths, they have closed the winter gardens, they 
have stopped the girls' social side ; they have turned 
the place into a polytechnic and nothing else — 
except for one or two things which they cannot 
prevent. 

However, the Palace has raised the standard of 
music enormously ; the people know and appreciate 
good music. They have had some good exhibi- 
tions of pictures and of Industries ; and there is an 
excellent polytechnic in the building. But alas ! 
alas ! what might not the Palace have done for the 
people if the original design had been carried out, 
if no educational side had been attached, and if the 
Drapers' Company had never touched it ? 

Three years after the appearance of the novel in 
which the Palace of Delight was described, I wrote 
another touching a note of deeper resonance. This 
book was the most truthful of anything that I have 
ever written. It was called Children of G'lbcon. It 

246 . 



SIR tVALTER BESANT 

offered the dally life and the manners — so far as 
they can be offered without offensive and useless 
realism — of the girls who do the rougher and 
coarser work of sewing in their own lodgings. I 
say that this book was as truthful as a long and 
patient investigation could make it. I knew every 
street in Hoxton ; I knew also every street in 
Ratcliffe ; I had been about among the people day 
after day and week after week — neglecting almost 
everything else. The thing was absorbing. I had 
stood in the miserable back room where the woman 
living by herself — the grey-haired elderly woman, 
all alone in that awful cell, with no furniture but 
sacking on the floor — is stitching away for bare 
life. I had sat among the girls whom I described 
— three in a room, with the one broad bed for 
the three — also stitching away for bare life. I had 
seen the widow and the daughter hot-pressing, 
stitching, their fingers flying for bare life. All 
these things and people I saw over and over again 
till my heart was sore and my brain was weary with 
the contemplation of so much misery. And then I 
sat down to write. Did the book do any good ? I 
do not know. I heard among the Hoxton folk 
that certain firms which had been in the habit of 
fining their girls for small offences were ashamed to 
own that this was their practice, and refrained. So 
far it was useful in abolishing a cruel and tyrannical 
act of oppression. What else it did I know not. 
Perhaps it made employers more careful in their 
treatment of the girls, more considerate, kinder in 

247 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

speech and manner. That it ran up wages I cannot 
beheve, because sentiment has nothing to do with 
wages. 

The book, however, introduced me to certain 
clubs of working girls. These clubs, run by ladies, 
are carrying on a noble work. Unfortunately there 
are not enough of them, and they reach compara- 
tively few of the class for whom they are designed. 
They exact from the ladies who conduct them the 
sacrifice of all their evenings — often of all their 
lives. It is a great deal to ask of ladies. On the 
other hand they have their reward in the salvation 
and the rescue of the girls. It is difficult to think 
of any sacrifice which a woman can make, that is 
more entirely lovely and more truly Christian, than 
to undertake the management of such a girls' club. 
What is the life of a nun, what the life of a sister 
immured in a cloister, compared with the life of a 
woman whose work and wage are wholly given to 
her sister, the girl who makes the buttonhole at the 
starvation wage of elevenpence-halfpenny a gross ^ 

There followed on the Children of Gibeon an 
attempt at organising co-operation for working 
women. The attempt was made by Mrs. Heck- 
ford, who, with her husband, founded the Chil- 
dren's Hospital at Poplar. She started with a 
small house in or near Cable Street, and with a 
dozen girls. She began very well. They made 
shirts, they obeyed the directress, there was a fore- 
woman in whom Mrs. Heckford placed unbounded 
trust. One day she found that this forewoman had 

248 



SIR PFJLTER B ES J N T 

betrayed her confidence; she had gone off, taking 
with her half the girls, in order to start on her own 
account a sweating establishment. By what persua- 
sions she induced the girls to leave a place where 
they were treated with the greatest kindness and 
personal affection and were earning half as much 
again as in a sweater's den, I know not. Fear of 
giving offence, and of being refused work by the 
sweater, if they should be thrown out of work, was 
probably the leading motive. However, half the 
girls went away. Then Mrs. Heckford took a 
larger house and made a bid for different kinds of 
business. Well, the attempt failed ; the women 
were not educated to co-operation ; sweating they 
understood. They would like themselves to be- 
come sweaters if they could ; the sweater, remem- 
ber, is as a rule only one degree better off than the 
women sweated, very nearly as poor, very nearly as 
miserable ; but he, or she, represents the first up- 
ward step. From being a sweater to the trade, one 
may become a master of sweaters. 

The next step, so far as I remember, was the 
foundation of a committee to consider the whole 
question of working women and their pay. We 
went, we talked ; certain persons gave us small 
sums, which we spent in accumulating facts and 
evidence. This evidence we printed. Then we 
discovered that Mr. Charles Booth was doing on a 
large and fully organised scale what we were attempt- 
ing on a small and limited scale. I have now, some- 
where, the bundle of printed tables which represent 

249 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

our work. But the committee's work came to 
nothing more. 

Meantime, as was inevitable, considering that I 
had so many things to do, I lost touch with H ox- 
ton and Stepney. I dropped out of the governing 
body of the People's Palace. In fact, they did not 
re-elect me; I suppose because I so seldom attended 
the meetings, at which the Drapers' Company more 
and more carried matters their own way — which 
was not the way for which the Palace was designed. 
There was, however, one place in which I continued 
to take a personal interest. It was the parish of 
St. James's, Ratcliffe, then under the charge of the 
Rev. R. K. Arbuthnot. It is certainly one of the 
poorest parishes in all London. It consisted, until 
a few streets were pulled down, of about eight 
thousand people. Of these, three-fourths were 
Roman Catholics and Irish, but there was no divi- 
sion among the people on account of religion. The 
parish contained a church, a " mission church " 
under the arches, schools, a " doss-house " for the 
destitute, a Quakers' meeting-house on the edge of 
the boundary — perhaps, indeed, belonging to an- 
other parish. There were in the parish no profes- 
sional men, no doctor even ; no Roman Catholic 
chapel ; and in not a single house except those of 
the clergy was there a servant. The parish was 
" run " by the clergy, and by the ladies who lived 
in, and worked for, the place, giving all their work, 
all their thoughts, and all their lives to the people. 
They had a girls' club numbering from forty to 

250 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

fifty. The girls came to the club every night ; 
they talked, they sang, they danced, they learned 
needlework, they were on terms of friendliness and 
personal affection with the leaders ; every night they 
had three hours' quiet, learning unconsciously les- 
sons of self-respect and order. At ten, or there- 
abouts, when prayers began, they all got up and 
stepped out — quietly, not to give offence ; and 
went back to Brook Street, their boulevard, where 
they met their young men, and walked about arm 
in arm working off" some of their animal spirits. 

The ladies at one time had also a lads' club ; it 
was carried on by one lady who had an extraordi- 
nary power of influencing these lads. They were 
fellows of fourteen to eighteen, great hulking fel- 
lows. They mostly worked at odd jobs along the 
river-side ; they were full of boisterous spirits and 
ready at any moment to make hay of everything in 
the club. But they did not ; the slim delicate girl 
restrained them. She made them put on the gloves 
with each other, and that shook the devil out of 
them for the evening; then she read to them, told 
them stories, made them play at games, and per- 
suaded them to be content and happy in the quiet 
room with warmth and light. The place was the 
rickety old warehouse which had been Mrs. Heck- 
ford's first Children's Hospital. But the place was 
condemned — not before it was time ; the flooring 
had become rotten, the whole house threatened to 
come down. The boys were turned out, and the 
house is now, I believe, with the whole street of 

251 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

crazy warehouses and tumble-down cottages, under- 
mined. 

At the same time another club held in the same 
place was destroyed. This was the children's play- 
house. The principal room of the house — that 
on the ground floor — had been taken over by the 
same lady for the little children. When they came 
out of school at four o'clock, there was nowhere for 
them to go. Therefore, in the cold and dark 
winter evenings, in the rain and snow and frost, 
these little mites played about in the street and on 
the kerb. Then the room was given to them, 
with its blazing fire and its gas ; a small collection 
of toys was made for them, chiefly of the india- 
rubber kind, which they could not break ; and from 
half-past four till half-past seven they would play 
about in this room under shelter and protected from 
the cold. The directress was with them most of 
the time ; she concluded every evening with a little 
service held in an upstairs room, which she had 
fitted as a chapel. One of her rough lads, who 
would otherwise have been a " hooligan," played 
the harmonium for them ; they sang a hymn — 
these tender little children — they said a prayer or 
two on their knees, and so went home. If I could 
aflFord it, I would build for the parish a house, with 
a room where the children could play and sing and 
pray ; and a room where the lads could be taken in 
hand without fuss or parade and could be reduced 
to order by the beneficent autocrat who ruled over 
the lads of Ratclifl^e. 

252 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

Another form of practical philanthropy which 
was laid upon me, so to speak, was caused not by 
anything I had written, but by the action of a friend. 
In the year 1879, my old friend Charles G. Leland 
(Hans Breitmann), who had been long resident in 
England and on the Continent, returned to Phila- 
delphia, his native town ; and there proceeded to 
realise a much cherished project of establishing an 
evening school for the teaching and practice of the 
minor arts — wood-carving, leather-work, fretwork, 
work in iron and other metals, cabinet-making, 
weaving, embroidery, and so forth. The attempt 
proved to be a very great success ; very shortly he 
found himself with classes containing in the aggre- 
gate four hundred pupils. He then proposed to 
me that we should start a similar school here in 
England. As he was coming back, I suggested 
that we should wait until his arrival. We did so, 
and on his return we started the Society called the 
Home Arts Association. We had as secretary a 
lady who had been watching the work from the be- 
ginning, was familiar with every aspect of it, and 
understood all its possibilities. I became the treas- 
urer, and we were so fortunate as to interest many 
influential persons. The idea was taken up by 
ladies of the highest rank, and by gentlemen with 
large estates ; our schools were started all over the 
country ; we have now, I believe, over five hundred 
schools ; we hold an annual exhibition of work ; the 
demand for articles such as we produce is largely 
increasing ; and we have found evening occupation 

253 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

for hundreds. For my own part, after doing what 
I could for the Association at the outset, I placed 
my resignation in the hands of the committee, to be 
accepted when they chose, because I could do no 
more for them. Let it be understood, however, 
that the movement is due entirely to the clear fore- 
sight of Charles Leland, and that the success of the 
English branch is due mainly to the intelligence and 
the resource of the secretary, Miss Annie Dymes. 

A later attempt to improve the position of women 
was the Women's Bureau of Work. I had long 
been of opinion that something might and could be 
done for women by way of creating a central bureau, 
with offices all over the country and in the colonies, 
where women who want work, and places which 
want women workers, might be registered, classified, 
and made known. Thus I imagined an association 
which should receive the names of women wanting 
work as typewriters, translators, shorthand clerks, 
accountants, teachers, artists, designers, etc., both in 
London and in the provinces ; and would take note 
also of the wants of workers. The names and the 
places should be entered in books for every centre, 
so that a woman in London might hear of work 
that would suit her at Liverpool and vice vers^. 
The plan had the merit of great simplicity. 

After a little private talk on the subject, a meeting 
was held, Mrs. Creighton being in the chair. I 
opened the subject by reading a paper; there was a 
discussion ; and in the end the bureau was estab- 
lished. I went to Liverpool and addressed a meeting 

254 



SIR JV A LT E R B ES J NT 

there on the subject and to Edinburgh and addressed 
another meeting there. The bureau is now in full 
working order ; I have not heard of late how many- 
local centres are established, but I think that it is 
only a question of time before a network of branches 
is spread over the whole country and the colonies. 
After all the failures and the futile talk about the 
work of women, it is satisfactory to find that there 
is something practical and definite actually estab- 
lished for their benefit. 

Since then, there are many causes, which seemed 
to me worthy of support, which I have been invited 
to assist by speaking or by writing. The Ragged 
School Union is one — a most admirable associa- 
tion with a record of unmixed success and practical 
charity. I wrote a paper on the subject for the 
Contemporary Review. In support of the London 
Hospital I was invited to write a paper, and did so ; 
it came out in a magazine first, it being understood 
that I was not to be paid for it, but that I could use 
it as I chose. I gave it, therefore, to the hospital ; 
they printed it as a pamphlet and circulated it 
largely, clearing some thousands by the work. 
They made me in return a governor of the hospital. 
Concerning the continuation schools, I wrote a 
paper, also for the Contemporary , called ** From 
Fourteen to Seventeen," pointing out the dangers 
of the streets for the young people after their work- 
ing hours. The continuation schools have now 
been established, but those whose zeal outruns their 
discretion are doing their best to discredit them by 

255 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

claiming, practically, the right to keep open school 
on all subjects free of charge at the ratepayers' 
expense — and for the whole wide world. However, 
good sense will in the end prevail ; such a claim 
reduced to plain English is monstrous. 

I have had, besides, to lecture on Art in the 
Home, on Women's Ideals, on the Science of 
Recreation, on Free Public Libraries, and on many 
other topics connected with social life and philan- 
thropic work. I think that I have never written 
or spoken on any subject which has given me more 
satisfaction than on the social work of the Salvation 
Army. It is, indeed, amazing to observe the pre- 
judices against the people of that great Christian 
community. Huxley called them " corybantic 
christians." He knew only the external side of 
their religion, about which I have steadfastly re- 
fused to speak. They carry on a religion which 
wants no priest and has no ecclesiastical pretension. 
Had Huxley considered this great point, he would 
perhaps have been a little more tolerant of an ag- 
gressiveness which was not directed against himself 
or his own class. What are the facts ? There is 
a vast company of men and women who carry on 
the work of a community on the lines laid down 
for them all over the English-speaking countries. 
They are called an army in order to secure the dis- 
cipline and the obedience of an army ; they obey 
orders and are subject to discipline ; they are poorly, 
very poorly, paid; they can make nothing extra for 
themselves in any way whatever; they can save 

256 



SIR PFALTER BESANT 

nothing ; there is no inducement for them to join 
on account of the pay ; the work is incessant, and 
the harder they work the more are they promoted 
to still harder work ; they have no rewards of fame, 
or name, or honour, even among themselves ; what- 
ever the results of their work, the workers them- 
selves get no reward and no publicity ; out of the 
whole number, not one has a banking account; 
they live with great plainness in poor quarters — 
sometimes in rough neighbourhoods, where they are 
knocked about and ill-treated ; they give up what- 
ever luxuries and softness of life they may have 
known. Sometimes the funds fail ; then they go 
without any money — Heaven knows how — for a 
week or more. Now all these things they do — 
for what reason ^. In the hope of what reward ? 
For the love of God, for the sake of Jesus Christ 
— and for no other reason whatever. Observe that 
not even the early followers of Francis lived in 
greater poverty ; not even in the first sprightly 
running of their pristine zeal, did they endure 
m.ore, sacrifice more, suffer more, court harder 
work with greater obscurity. 

They carry on, besides their religious propaganda 
among the poorer classes, a quiet work among the 
"submerged." They have shelters and night ref- 
uges ; they receive the prisoners on their release ; 
they bring into their homes both the most miser- 
able, the most abandoned, the most deeply sunken 
women, and the lads and girls ripening for lives of 
vice. They have workshops where they train the 
17 257 



AUT0BI0GRAPH7' OF 

poor wrecks and the ignorant youths in trades of all 
kinds ; they have labour bureaux, where they find 
work for those people. As in so many cases a re- 
turn to the land is the best thing possible, they 
have a farm where they make of them agricultural 
labourers, brickmakers, breeders of poultry, horses, 
and cattle. I repeat that no Franciscan monk in 
his newborn zeal could excel these so-called captains 
and lieutenants in the community which calls itself 
the Salvation Army. I have myself taken their sta- 
tistics — those which frankly acknowledge their fail- 
ures — and I have shown that in the farm alone 
there is room for many more failures, and that an 
annual gain would still be left. Yet the world 
refuses to recognise the work ; they listen to, and 
repeat, lies. They allege, falsely, that there is no 
balance sheet published ; they pretend that the 
chief, General Booth, is enriching himself and his 
family. Why, no one has a salary more than that 
which a bank clerk commands after a few years in 
ofiice ; all the money is banked in the General's 
name, but none can be taken out without the au- 
thority of the Finance Committee. In a word, all 
possible precautions are taken to prevent the things 
concerning which the dissemination of lies goes on. 
Yet the lies are disseminated; and they are believed. 
The reason why they are believed is that the people, 
seeing an organisation thus successful, outside the 
ordinary lines, and without the patronage of bishop, 
clergy, and Church, an organisation which is essen- 
tially popular — of the people, for the people, by 

258 



SIR PF J L TE R B ES A N T 

the people — an organisation containing here and 
there a scholar and a gentleman and a gentlewoman, 
but consisting for the most part of a simple folk, 
regard it with suspicion and are slow to recognise 
the solid feats of self-sacrifice, the Christian aims — 
and the success. 

The general prejudice against the Salvation Army 
was Illustrated in an article in the Spectator in the 
autumn of 1900. The writer, after speaking of the 
early Friars, asked sadly where such a spirit of self- 
sacrifice and devotion was to be found at the present 
day. The spirit was manifested in a great work — 
far greater than that of Francis in his lifetime ; that 
work was lying at the very feet of the writer ; yet he 
could not see it ; all he saw was an aggressive form 
of sectarian Christianity. Here is the vast machi- 
nery worked by thousands for the sake of tens of 
thousands, bringing hope and consolation and the 
restoration of manhood to the poor wrecks and waifs 
of humanity, to the submerged, to the criminals, to 
the drunkards, to the prostitutes, to the discharged 
prisoners, to ruined clerks, to broken gentlemen. 
" Where," asks this writer, " is that spirit of self- 
sacrifice and devotion to be found to-day ? " Alas, 
purblind ignorance ! Alas for prejudice which will 
not see ! Alas for the deafness which cannot hear 
and the stupidity which will, being whole, not under- 
stand ! 

And so you see my philanthropic work, such as 
it has been, has been due entirely to two or three 
novels. I drew a picture as faithfully as I could 

259 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

and I was identified with the picture. People sup- 
posed that because I had drawn with a certain 
amount of understanding my heart was full of sym- 
pathy. The calls upon me went far to create that 
sympathy. First I drew what I saw ; then my 
sympathy went out towards my models ; the next 
step was to write for them, to work for them, to 
speak for them. But I began to speak late in life. 
I have never been a speaker; I lacked the small 
things of the orator — the current common phrase 
with which he effects the junctura callida of various 
divisions. Moreover, I had a difficulty to manage 
my voice ; when I grew excited, when I felt my 
audience with me, I was carried away, I spoke too 
fast. Yet there were occasions on which I could, 
and did, speak effectively — notably one occasion 
at the Mansion House when I certified to what I 
knew and had proved concerning the social work 
of the Salvation Army. 

I shall not, I suppose, speak much more in 
public. I can only hope that in my various ad- 
dresses I may have done good, if only to dispel 
some prejudice ; that I may have induced some of 
the younger and more generous spirits to take upon 
them, whether for the Salvation Army or some 
other cause, that spirit of self-sacrifice, of devotion, 
of voluntary obscurity which, pace the Spectator^ is 
in this generation awake and alive among us and 
is working marvels. 



260 



SIR fF J L T E R B ES J N T 
Chapter XIV ' 

THE SURVEY OF LONDON 

IN October 1894 I began the survey of Lon- 
don, having entered into an arrangement with 
Messrs. A. & C. Black, the publishers of the 
Encyclopedia Britannicdy for its production. 

The survey of London was first undertaken by 
John Stow, and the first edition was published in 
1598. His work remains as the basis of all follow- 
ing works on the same subject. It is indeed re- 
markable to observe how very little was added to 
Stow for a long time. Anthony Munday, James 
Howell, and a " Society of Gentlemen " successively 
brought out new editions of Stow's Survey — not 
always under that name — during the seventeenth 
century. In 1720 an edition brought up to date 
with maps and excellent illustrations was issued by 
John Strype in two volumes folio. This was fol- 
lowed by The Circuit JValk^ or Perambulation. In 
1754 another edition of Stow and Strype appeared 
with very little alteration. In the same year William 
Maitland produced his History and Survey of London y 

1 This chapter gives only an outline of the author's design ; but 
Sir Walter Besant intended to make additions to it, and also to allude 
here in detail to his several books on London. Moreover he hoped 
that the Surnjey would see the light during his life, when the work 
would speak for itself. 

261 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

which was original and, for the time, very good. 
Other books came out on the history of London 
with or without the Perambulation. These, whether 
they bore the name of Lambert, Allen, or Entick, 
were practically copies of Maitland — mere copies 
verbatim of page after page. Harrison's history, 
which belongs to the same time as Maitland, is also 
for the most part a copy. Since the appearance of 
Strype — that is to say, for nearly a hundred and 
fifty years — there has been no survey of London. 
Maps of London there are, books on various 
points connected with London — such as the his- 
tory of a suburb, of a church, of an institution — 
but there has been no survey. 

My proposal was to conduct such a survey. 
The plan was as follows : First, the history of Lon- 
don from the earliest times to the end of the nine- 
teenth century was to be written by myself. I have 
now (1901) completed the work down to the end 
of the eighteenth century. This history includes 
the rise and growth of the government of London, 
the story of its religious houses, the daily life 
of the people, the records of trade, shipping, 
buildings — everything that can be found for a 
reconstruction and restoration of the City from 
age to age. The history of Westminster and of 
Limehouse was planned to follow the history of 
the City. The antiquities of London and of its 
ancient suburbs were to be detailed after this. The 
City churches were to be described with their chan- 
tries and monuments. There were to be mono- 

262 



SIR WALTER BESJNT 

graphs on St. Paul's, Westminster Abbey, the Inns 
of Court, the Tower of London, and other impor- 
tant places. The perambulations of the City and 
its suburbs, including the whole area covered by 
the London County Council, were to come next. 
We were then to give the history of London as it is 
to-day, with all its buildings and institutions, in- 
cluding a history of education in London from the 
earliest times to the end of the nineteenth century. 

This was the task that lay before me. I began 
with the perambulations, which were carried out for 
me by three or four active and intelligent young 
people. For my own part I set to work at once 
upon the history. I confess that had I known the 
enormity of the labours before me, I should not 
have undertaken the work. Every one will under- 
stand that the number of points constantly cropping 
up and demanding investigation could not be esti- 
mated beforehand. My original design was to give 
the whole day to the work except when I had 
fiction in hand — that is to say, to give about 
eight months of the year. When I was working 
upon a novel I gave up my mornings from nine to 
twelve to fiction ; and my afternoons — from half- 
past one till six — to the Survey. A change of 
work does not fatigue one so much as continuing 
steadily at the same work. To put away the fic- 
tion, which I did at home, and to take up the Sur- 
vey, which I wrote in town, was a refreshing change, 
the work being divided by the time taken up in 
getting into town. However, when I look at the 

263 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

masses of typewritten material which represent the 
six years of work at the Survey, I am astonished 
that I have been able to carry out so much with 
my own hand. I resolved, at the outset, to under- 
take the history alone, but I found it necessary to 
take over a great deal more. I mention the Sur- 
vey as part — a good part — of my life's work. I 
know not how it will be received. There is so vast 
a field to be covered. The modern discoveries 
made concerning mediaeval London and the recent 
publications of the Corporation have given me a 
quantity of material never before used or put 
together. I need not here furnish a list of these 
books : that will be found in the Survey itself. 
Let it only be remembered that I have been able to 
break away altogether from Maitland and to treat 
the City from new materials and newly published 
records. 

I have only to say, further, on this point, that I 
hope to see the publication begun this year (1901), 
and that I am, further, in hopes that the history 
and the Survey will be found worthy of the time 
and the subject. The beginning of the twentieth 
century is a fitting time for such a Survey to ap- 
pear, and it is interesting to think that it is as nearly 
as possible three hundred years since the first edition 
of Stow was published. 



264 



SIR ^JLTER B ES J N T 



Chapter XV 

THE ATLANTIC UNION 

IN my belief and according to my experience, if 
anything is to be accomplished it must be by 
the initiative of one man. A society with the 
full machinery of president, vice-president, and 
committee may be created, but then, when all is 
told, the work will be the work of one man, who 
must think for the society, live for it, act for it, and 
give all his time to it. The man who does the 
work need not be the man who started it. 

One of the last associations with the start of 
which I was associated — though one of which I 
beg to state I was never the mainspring or the 
thinking machine — was the Atlantic Union. 

The origin and the meaning of the Society was 
as follows : — 

I observed when I last visited the United States 
in 1893, a blind and stupid hostility to England, 
partly made up of prejudice and ignorance, and partly 
due to the press of New York, which caters in great 
measure for the Irish, and is copied by the country 
papers without asking what motives have actuated 
the misrepresentation of things English. In illustra- 
tion of this hostility I observed that the attitude of 

365 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

almost everybody In America towards England was 
then one of suspicion ; whatever was done by this 
country was regarded and treated at the outset as 
presumably done with an evil motive or with un- 
worthy considerations. 1 observed further, that 
the individual Englishman was received with friend- 
liness and kindness ; that he can reckon on friendli- 
ness. Also that there exists, all over the States, a 
great deal of interest in everything that concerns 
the old country ; in news and telegrams from Eng- 
land, in our literature, in our views of things. I 
saw also that the ignorance of our institutions in 
the States is simply amazing. We talk about the 
laws being the same ; the foundation of the law is 
the same, but there are enormous differences. For 
instance, no Americans seem able to understand 
loyalty ; our personal respect and affection for the 
sovereign is to thon incomprehensible ; they do not 
understand the restrictions of sovereignty, and ex- 
pect from the sovereign the same personal and 
irresponsible acts and words as from an ordinary 
person. Again, as to the House of Lords, their 
ignorance and prejudice are colossal. Mostly they 
think that it comprises all the sons as well as the 
holders of the title ; and they are fully convinced 
that a noble lord is and must be a profligate and 
roue. If you ask them why, they point prob- 
ably to some noble lord who has been figuring in 
the States with a variety actress, leaving his wife at 
home; or to some scandal in which some other 
noble lord or some younger son with a courtesy 

266 



SIR tF A LT E R B ES A NT 

title is concerned. That the House of Lords con- 
sists almost entirely of elderly and quite respectable 
gentlemen, many of whom have received or suc- 
ceeded to their titles late in life ; who are not too 
rich ; who are for the most part interested in local, 
rather than in national matters ; who are chairmen 
of county institutions and supporters of the agri- 
cultural interest ; who leave their legislative func- 
tions to the care of a dozen or twenty statesmen and 
as many lawyers — that such is our House of Lords 
is a thing that they cannot believe, and will not 
believe, because it conflicts with one of their most 
cherished prejudices. Indeed this prejudice I have 
found among Americans who have been here over 
and over again. Now, one is not called upon to 
defend either the hmited monarchy or the Upper 
House to Americans ; but it would certainly be well 
if they could learn at least the facts of the case. 
As it is, they are unable to understand the existence 
of free institutions, and personal liberty of thought, 
speech, and action, together with (i) a sovereign 
whose power — but this, again, they cannot under- 
stand — is far less than that of their President; and 
(2) a House of Lords not elected by the people, 
whose modest functions are to put on the drag, to 
prevent the passing of ill-considered measures, and 
to allow no great or important step to be taken 
until they are well assured that it is the will of the 
people. 

Again, consider the attitude of the average Ameri- 
can towards the Anglican Church. I suppose that 

267 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

the Episcopal Church In the States does regard the 
AngHcan branch with respect or with appreciation. 
But the average American does not belong to the 
Episcopal Church. I have found in the average 
American a rooted belief (i) that our clergy are 
enormously rich; (2) that they do nothing; (3) 
that such a thing as piety is not known to them ; 
(4) that the patronage of the Church is in the hands 
of " the aristocracy," who put their younger sons 
into all the enviable berths. These prejudices are 
kept alive by an ill-informed or malignant press in 
America ; by certain dissenting ministers in this 
country whose hatred of the Church has a social 
origin — let us own that of late the appearance of 
scholars and divines among the Nonconformist 
ministers is changing the social aspect of the case ; 
and by the traditions of persecution which still linger 
in the memory of the New England folk. The pre- 
judices can be answered only by reference to figures 
and to facts which cannot be disputed. The poverty 
of the English clergy Is far greater than the poverty 
of the American ministers ; the number of good 
livings in England is much less than the number 
of well-paid churches In New England. The An- 
glican bishops, whose incomes appear large, cannot, 
as a rule, save much from what they receive. They 
are, for the most part, elderly when they are ap- 
pointed ; they have to keep up open house all the 
year round ; they have to support every kind of 
charitable and reHgious enterprise ; they are always 
contributing to the support of poor clergy, of clergy- 

268 



SIR fV A LT E R B ES A N T 

men's widows and orphans, and schools and so on ; 
they travel about, and are always obliged to keep 
up a staff of chaplains and secretaries. The bishop 
is paid for the maintenance and leadership of the 
diocese and all that his diocese means ; he is the 
figure-head, the chairman, the advocate ; without a 
bishop the diocese falls to pieces. As regards 
piety, what need be said when we can point 
to the long and glorious history of the English 
Church — to the names of Ken, Hooker, Her- 
bert, Heber, or, in later times, Keble, Pusey, 
Maurice, Robertson, Stanley and hundreds of 
others less known to fame ? As to the patronage 
of the Church, one has only to look into the Clergy 
List to find out what that is worth and how it is 
bestowed. 

An American once wrote to me giving me, with 
a great air of triumph, what he was pleased to con- 
sider a damning fact for the Church — viz., that the 
patron of a certain benefice had actually bestowed it 
upon his illegitimate son first and then upon that 
holder's son. He did not explain why illegitimacy 
should make a man unfit for Holy Orders or for 
holding a living; nor did he explain how it was that 
the bishop had accepted for the benefice a man 
unfit, as my American evidently considered the 
man to be. But then he was quite ignorant that 
the bishop had anything to do with the appointment. 

These prejudices are not, of course, so strong 
with the educated and the cultured Americans as 
with the average American ; still, they do exist, 

269 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

more or less, with nearly all. They are difficult to 
be cleared away because they assist the American in 
that feeling of superiority which is dear to every 
nationality. It is perhaps dearer to an American 
than to a Frenchman or a German ; and I think 
that one of the causes of the American hostility to 
England that I noticed during my stay in the United 
States in 1893 is that we do not recognise that 
superiority. We do not, in fact, care in the least 
whether a foreign country thinks itself superior to 
ourselves or not. But we do see that the American 
claim is partly based on ignorance and prejudice. 
And we should be very pleased if we could, by 
any means in our power, remove some of that 
prejudice. 

I next observed that a great number of Americans 
— and, for that matter, of people from our own 
large colonies — come to this country every year ; 
that they stay a short time in London ; that they 
travel about England to a certain extent, seeing 
cathedrals, castles, churches, and historic places; 
that they bring with them no letters of introduction ; 
that they never enter an English house or make a 
friend of any English man or woman ; that they see 
everything from the outside only ; and that they 
go away again with all their prejudice and igno- 
rance as strong as ever. For you see, you cannot 
master the history, or understand the present con- 
dition, of the Church of England by standing 
in a village churchyard or by looking through a 
cathedral. 

270 



SIR TFALTER BESANT 

This is a long preamble. It leads up to the crea- 
tion of the Atlantic Union. 

The Society admits as members Englishmen, 
Irishmen and Scotchmen, Australians, Canadians, 
citizens of any British colony, and Americans. Be- 
cause the Canadians and the citizens of the United 
States represent the largest field, it is called the At- 
lantic Union. We want to see branches in all the 
great cities, which shall offer some kind of hos- 
pitality to members of other branches. For in- 
stance, we in London engage ourselves to receive 
Americans and others, to show them collective and 
individual attention ; we organise for them person- 
ally conducted walks and visits ; we shall be able to 
let them see more than is shown to the average 
stranger ; we shall hold receptions ; we shall get up 
dinners, concerts, lectures ; certain ladles will give 
garden-parties and " at-homes " ; we shall make up 
parties to go to Oxford and Cambridge and to cer- 
tain cathedrals and other places ; and during the 
whole time we shall endeavour to present our own 
institutions as they are — without comparisons : as 
they are. 

Again, we shall not attempt to get hold of mil- 
lionaires, nor can we offer our friends an opening 
into " London Society." We want to attract the 
classes which have most influence in the colonies 
and in the States — the professional classes, lawyers, 
physicians, authors, teachers. And on our side we 
shall offer the society of the corresponding classes 
— of cultivated and educated people, men and 

271 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

women of science, followers of art, literature, jour- 
nalism, and the learned professions generally. It 
is a great scheme; it is now (1901) only in its 
second year; but I think — 1 hope — that it has a 
future before it. 



272 



SIR fV A LT E R B ES A N T 



Chapter XVI 



CONCLUSION : THE CONDUCT OF LIFE AND THE 
INFLUENCE OF RELIGION 

I AM writing in the decline of life, when the 
sixtieth birthday is already five years behind, 
and one must contemplate the possibility of 
immediate dissolution and the certainty of a speedy 
end ; when all that life has to give, or that fortune 
chooses to give, has been already given. The love 
of woman ; of wife and children ; the allotted 
measure of success ; the joy of work ; the joy of 
struggle ; the joy of victory ; the love of friends 
who have gone before and of friends who are left ; 
the reputation, whatever it may be — all these 
things have been received and enjoyed ; and with 
them the piled-up hatreds and revenges of the baser 
sort. There is work still to be done : it is the 
carrying on of old work, not the making of new 
work. We gather up the threads and accomplish 
the task, happy if it has been a task so weighty 
as to be prolonged into the year threescore and 
ten. 

Let me end these reminiscences with a few words 
befitting the close of a life — being upon the Con- 
duct of Life and the Influence of Religion, 
i8 273 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

One is not expected to be much above the 
standards of one's own time. At school, for in- 
stance, we had no athletics to speak of in my time; 
we played cricket and football, we ran races. There 
was no responsibility laid upon the back of the 
senior boys yet ; in a way they did look after the 
juniors — it was an irresponsible and spontaneous 
fashion ; such words as " good form " and " bad 
form " were unknown, yet the things were known. 

At King's College, London, the professors and 
lecturers took no personal interest in the students ; 
the principal. Dr. Jelf, knew nothing of them and 
paid them no attention ; nobody cared whether they 
read ; nobody ever considered it worth while to look 
after the better sort ; we were all left absolutely 
alone. There was no college life in the place, 
no clubs, no social intercourse among the students. 
The idea was simply to present the means of learn- 
ing if the men chose to avail themselves of the gift ; 
in the same way the old and still lingering adminis- 
tration of the Church was to open the doors, to 
present the means of grace, and to allow those who 
wished to avail themselves of the gift. Outside 
the college, I have already explained, 1 used to 
wander about the City. But there was the evening 
to get through. No one appeared to know how 
desperately miserable an evening all alone in 
lodgings may be. I have sat with my books 
before me while the silence grew more and more 
intolerable, rising up all round as a cloud hiding 
the rest of the world. When my nerves would 

274 



SIR WALTER B ES A N T 

stand it no longer, I have taken my hat and rushed 
out into the streets. 

The evening amusements of London were more 
varied, and far, far more coarse than they are now. 
As a young fellow of eighteen I ought not to have 
gone to them — that is quite certain. Yet what 
could be done when solitude became intolerable ? 
There were the theatres at half-price — there were 
not many theatres, and in a week or two one could 
get through them all. There were the dancing 
places of the more decorous sort, the Argyle 
Rooms, the Holborn Casino, " Caldwell's," besides 
places whose reputation was such that one was 
afraid to venture within their walls. At the Hol- 
born and the Argyle the ladies were very beautifully 
dressed. I did not go there to dance or to make 
their acquaintance ; I sat on the red velvet benches 
and listened to the music. At " Caldwell's," on 
the other hand, where the girls were more simply 
attired, and where they liked to meet a young 
fellow who could dance, and could dance tolerably 
well, I did dance. Perhaps it was wrong ; perhaps, 
however, it was not. I take no blame to myself on 
account of " Caldwell's." 

There were places not quite so Innocent whither 
my wandering footsteps led me. There were the 
Coal Hole, the Cider Cellars, Evans's. At these 
places there was singing ; some of the songs were 
very beautiful and very well sung ; part songs were 
given at Evans's ; poses plastiques were offered for 
the corruption of youth at a place whose name I 

275 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

have forgotten ; and at the Coal Hole or the Cider 
Cellars there was " Baron " Nicholson and the 
"judge and jury." Such an exhibition would not 
be tolerated at the present day ; I remember it as 
clever but inconceivably coarse. In the summer 
one could go to Cremorne or to Highbury Barn; 
even, for curiosity, walk to the Eagle in the City 
Road. When I remember all these places and 
how, in order to escape the awful stillness of my 
lodgings, I would go out in the evening and prowl 
about looking in here and there, I wonder that 
some horrible obsession of the devil did not fall 
upon me, as it fell upon hundreds and thousands 
of young fellows like myself, turned into the streets 
because I could not bear to sit alone. Why, there 
were clerks and students all round me ; every 
house in my street was filled with them ; every man 
sat in his own dismal cell and listened to the silence 
till his nerves could stand it no longer. Then he 
went out into the street. If there are fifty devils 
in the streets to-day, there were five hundred then. 
It was not every one who at eighteen was so boyish 
in mind and manner and in appearance as I was ; 
not every one who was short-sighted and shy ; not 
every one who was able to sit among the rabble 
rout and listen to the music as if surrounded by 
nymphs and swains of the highest purity and 
virtue. 

However, the thing to be remembered is that 
London was much coarser in its evening amusements 
then than now ; that the outward show of morals 

276 



SIR ^JLTER B ES A N r 

was not insisted upon so much. London is bad 
enough now, but in most localities only after ten 
o'clock and before twelve, whereas in the fifties 
things went on all day long. I remember that 
among the houses south of Waterloo Bridge there 
was a whole row where in the ground-floor windows 
there was every day an exhibition of girls dancing 
up and down, and inviting the young men to come 
in. And I remember that, apart from the "judge 
and jury " business, the songs sung at some places 
were coarse beyond belief. And considering all 
these things, I cannot wonder that I went to them, 
having no one to warn or to restrain me, or to offer 
any substitutes for the amusements which were gross 
enough, yet promised the attractions of music and 
singing. 

At Cambridge there were none of these things. 
Yet there were coarsenesses at Cambridge which one 
looks back upon with surprise. After dinner (the 
dinner hour was four — an unholy hour) there were 
" wines " which were often prolonged far into the 
evening. There were also suppers, and at wines 
and at suppers men sang songs which would not 
now be tolerated by the most rowdy set in the most 
rowdy college. Then there was little or no disguise 
if a man supported the suburb called Barnwell ; the 
only thing was that he must not be caught by the 
proctors. The suburb was well populated and freely 
discussed. That a man was intended for Holy 
Orders did not offer an obstacle to this patronage 
of Barnwell ; there were fellows of colleges who 

277 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

were as bad as the undergraduates in this respect. 
I mention the fact simply to show the temptations 
to which young men were then exposed. Nothing 
is more remarkable than the change at my university 
in respect to wine — and Barnwell. Meantime it 
must not be supposed that there were no under- 
graduates of a higher tone or a purer life ; on the 
contrary, there were many ; their lives, their con- 
versation, their habits were a continual protest against 
the general low level. 

In a word, the youth of my time were brought up 
in the midst of great laxity of morals, great coarse- 
ness of conversation, amusements gross and un- 
seemly, yet with the existence all around them of 
Puritan austerity and the condemnation of the 
reasonable recreations of life. Unfortunately the 
Puritan austerity demanded too much of young 
men ; it could only be adopted by the few who 
were as cold-blooded as fishes, or by the fanatics 
who curbed themselves with resolution and by vio- 
lence. For it condemned all amusements. " Could 
you," said one, and it was thought by his following 
to be a clincher — " could you say grace before sit- 
ting down to cards ^. " The answer would be now 
" Of course — why not ? " For indeed there is no 
reason why, if we are not Pharisaic, we should not 
thank God for every innocent recreation. " Can 
you," asked another, " put your arm round the 
waist of a girl in the dance without thoughts of 
love? " The answer is now obvious. Formerly it 
was not so obvious. " Can you," asked a third aus- 

278 



SIR JV A LTER B ES A NT 

terely, " go to the theatre while your immortal soul 
remains to be saved ? " And so they went on. Is 
there any wonder that the revolt against the Evan- 
gelicals waited only for the spark, and that when 
this spark was applied by the newly founded Satur- 
day Review the defeat and the rout of the Evan- 
gelicals speedily followed ? 

The Evangelicals represented for the most part a 
pitiless and horrible Calvinism, The world groaned 
under the dreadful creed. Not only did it limit 
the mercy of God and the mediation of Christ to 
an insignificant minority, but it held that as a man 
died — at the moment of death — so his soul was 
affected for ever. I remember how a cousin of 
mine was drowned when I was a boy. The young 
fellow had told his mother that he was not going 
to the water ; he changed his mind and went ; and 
he was drowned. The kindly religious folk said 
that he had gone to meet his God with a lie upon 
his lips, and that his doom was certain. You may 
imagine the agony and misery of his mother. 

For my own part I began to read the works of 
Frederick Denison Maurice ; he taught me the way 
out of the Evangelical creed and I followed that 
way with the greatest alacrity. 

Having shovelled away the Evangelical rubbish, 
I was ready to make a clean sweep of a good deal 
more. I do not suppose that any one wants to 
know how I arrived at my present simple creed, 
but such as it is, perhaps it may interest some 

readers : — 

279 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

I believe, in an intelligent Mind who hears, lis- 
tens, guides, and directs ; to which nothing is small, 
nothing is mean, nothing is contemptible ; which 
leads a Darwin in the direction of discovery, or 
grants what is good for a simple girl ; which has 
ordered the evolution of an insect as much as that 
of a man. 

I believe that this Mind has in some way ordered 
the conversion of a ball of flaming rock into a globe 
covered with vegetation. In other words, what we 
call the laws of Nature are due to the Mind. They 
are laws to which all life is subject; if they are 
broken, the breaker suffers. 

I believe that these laws are in a moral or spiritual 
order as well as physical order. The discovery of 
this moral order has been made little by little, but 
the greatest contributors to the discovery have been 
the Jewish prophets, ending with Jesus. 

If one calls him the Son of God, why not? We 
are all the Sons of God, and He is the greatest. 
That He was martyred was a natural result of His 
teaching at such a time. 

7 he doctrine of atonement by blood is found in 
every age and in every country ; it forms a part of 
the great theory of sacrifice — viz., the propitiation 
of the Deity, as a Deity, by something rare and 
precious as the eldest son, or a captive, or so many 
head of cattle or of sheep. We no longer believe 
in the sacrifice and altars, in giving roast beef to the 
Lord, or in offering him streams of wine or human 
sacrifices. We no longer believe in blood being 

280 



SIR IV A LT E R B ES J N T 

poured out in order to propitiate the Deity. There- 
fore to speak of the blood of Jesus is a mere sur- 
vival in words of an exploded belief 

The pretensions of the so-called Christian priest 
are not more foolish than the pretensions of any 
other priest. The Jewish prophets have proclaimed, 
in words that ought to serve once for all, their 
contempt for the Jewish priest. The spirit of sa- 
cerdotalism is the same in every religion and in every 
age. The priest claims supernatural powers; we con- 
vert bread into flesh and wine into blood ; we confer 
some mysterious benefit by baptising the child, 
marrying the man and woman, and burying them. 
The priest surrounds himself with mystery, gets 
inside a sacred enclosure, mumbles, makes signs, 
puts on vestments. He does this whether he is 
making taboo in a Polynesian island, or mumbo- 
jumbo in West Africa, or obeah in Jamaica, or is a 
Roman Catholic priest in St. Peter's or a Ritualist 
in an English church. 

Meantime foolish people — whose folly is bound- 
less and amazing and past all understanding — spend 
their lives in fighting over what is, or is not, allowed 
in this or that Prayer Book. Not content with the 
slavery of the letter of the Bible, they have become 
slaves of the letter of the Prayer Book. Now, set 
the Prayer Book aside and appeal to common sense 
and experience. 

Experience, at least, yells and shouts in our ears, 
only we will not understand, the fact that auricular 
confession is a slavery ; that it destroys the will and 

281 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

that it leads a man to surrender his judgment and 
his freedom of action, and makes him in the conduct 
of life little better than a child. 

The reservation of the host is proved to be fer- 
tile in superstition, in charges of blasphemy, and in 
the extension of priestly domination. The only 
excuse for it is that a man may die before the 
bread can be consecrated — as if it mattered in such 
a case, or in any case, whether the bread was conse- 
crated or not. 

The use of incense was originally introduced to 
correct the atmosphere during a crowded service 
in hot countries. If it were not, can any one not 
corrupted by the ecclesiastical rubbish believe that 
the Lord is pleased by creating a stink in a 
church? 

Some of the poor fanatics are desirous of intro- 
ducing prayers for the dead ; can they possibly 
be ignorant of the fact that the system means 
prayers for those who can pay, and the creation 
of chanting priests, to sing services — propitiatory 
services — for those who can pay } And can they 
see any difference between such a service, mumbled 
as a daily duty by a priest paid for the duty, and 
the mechanical prayers of a Buddhist priest ? And 
can they reconcile this senseless repetition with any 
mercy, however inadequate, of an intelligent Creator 
and Father.? 

In fine, the more I consider the question — and it 
has been forced upon my consideration more than 
upon that of many men — the more I understand 

282 



SIR tFALTER BESANT 

that the whole of the ecclesiastical system, with the 
pretensions of the clergy, the mock mystery of their 
ritual, the supernatural nonsense of their claims, their 
schemes for the domination of the human intellect, 
their ecclesiastical trappings, mouthings, murmur- 
ings, confessings, incense, consecration rites, and all 
the rest of it, are foolish, baseless, and to the highest 
degree mischievous. 

Christianity seems to me a perfectly simple reli- 
gion, it consists not only in a blameless life, but in a 
life whose ideals are continually growing higher and 
more noble. That this is possible, is in itself to me 
a proof of another life to follow this. 

In Christianity I find no place for priest or for 
mysteries of man's own making. The world is full 
of mysteries ; all life is a mystery never to be dis- 
covered. There is the great and wonderful mys- 
tery of birth — can anything be more mysterious or 
more wonderful ^. There is the mystery of growth, 
the mystery of manhood and of strength, the mys- 
tery of decay and death. Why do we decay at 
sixty and die at seventy ? There are the mysteries 
of disease, there are the mysteries of man's intel- 
lectual achievements, his scientific discoveries, his 
subjugation of natural forces, his invention, his 
music and his arts, his poetry, in which he seems 
to draw back the veil — he only dreams of drawing 
it back, but he magnetises his audience so that for 
a time they think that they are looking at the things 
behind. Good Heavens ! These are the great and 
solemn mysteries. To consider them, to work 

283 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF 

upon them, showing their reality since we can never 
show their cause, to study them, to make discov- 
eries in them — these are things worthy of man, 
worthy of true reHgion. Why invent sham and 
meaningless mysteries which are but words, which 
lead to nothing but the mischievous intervention 
between God and man of a fellow-man who pre- 
tends to useless powers and professes to hold the 
keys of heaven ? 

A blameless life — what is it ? You will find it 
all in the Sermon on the Mount, if you are wise 
enough to understand what is meant, and not to 
interpret it by the letter. 

And so I leave my belief and my life. Looking 
back, as I have done in these chapters, I remember 
a good many mistakes — some things even which 1 
should be ashamed to set down in this page. But 
the book is not one of confessions. I could not 
pretend, as regards the things not set down, to be 
repentant ; if I were to sprinkle ashes over my head, 
it would be, perhaps, while I was recalling the thing 
itself with a lingering pleasure. I have shown you 
the conditions of my early manhood ; the finish of 
those conditions may be guessed, as much as you 
please. And as to my religious views, they have 
gradually come to me. Little by little they have 
formed themselves in my mind until they have become 
part and parcel of me. Now at last there is not 
left to me a single rag or scrap of the ecclesiastical 
rubbish. I do not seek to convert any of my readers 
to my own views ; only, my very dear friends, if you 

284 



SIR WALTER BESANT 

could understand the freedom — the happy freedom 
— of the soul, when you have succeeded in recog- 
nising the utter baselessness of the priestly preten- 
sions, you would at least take the trouble to find 
out what the views mean. 



285 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abbey, Edwin, 240 

Ainger, Canon, 69 

All in a Garden Fair, 51, 76, 209 

All Sorts and Conditions of Men, 

209 
All the Tear Round, 189 
Alma-Tadema, Sir L. , 240 
Arabesques from the Bazaars, 240 
Arbuthnot, Rev. J. K., 251 
Argyle Rooms, 275 
Armorel of Lyonesse, 209 
Arnold, Matthew, 218 
Art in the home, 256 
Athenaum, 193 
Atlantic Union, 265 
Authors' Society, 215-238 



Barkly, Sir Henry, 136, 144 
Bentley, George, 169 
Beresford-Hope, A. J., 153 
Besant, Dr. W. H., 39 
Besant, Edgar, 188 
Besant, Sir Walter: 

Birthplace, 4 

Father, 33 

Mother, 38 

Early reading, 38, 48, 53 

Early education, 48-66 

At King's College, London, 67 

Life in lodgings, 71 

Wins prize poem, 74 

19 289 



Besant, Sir Walter (continued): 
At Christ's College, Cam- 
bridge, 79 
Wins prize essay, 87 
Wrangler, 88 
Undergraduate life, 88 
Wins Calverley's prize, 96 
Master at Leamington, 103 
Vacation abroad, 105-108 
Colonial appointment, 109 
Life in Mauritius, 115-144 
Offered rectorship of Mauritius 

College, 118 
First attempt at fiction, 140 
Returns to England, 145 
Publishes first book, 151 
Becomes Secretary to the Pal- 
estine Exploration Fund, 
152 
Meets Professor Palmer, 153 
Marries, 165 

First steps in literary career, 168 
The French Humorists, 169 
Midwinter walks, 173 
History of Jerusalem, 174 
Joins the Savile Club, 175 
The Ne^w Plutarch, x-j-j 
Titania" s Farenvell, 180 
Becomes a novelist, 181 
Views on critics, 182-185, 
190-196 



I N D EX 



Besant, Sir Walter (continued) : 
Collaborates with James Rice, 

i8s 
Ready Money Mortiboy, i86 
Views on collaboration, i86 
Tke Golden Butterfly, i88 
The Besant and Rice novels, 

196 
TAe Chaplain of the Fleet, 196 
Industry, 199 
Literary methods, 200 
Dorothy Forster, 204 
The Besant novels, 204-211 
Preliminary chairman of the 

Society of Authors, 221 
Views on Literary Property, 

224—238 
Freemasonry, 238 
A founder of the Rabelais 

Club, 240 
Philanthropic work, 243 
Associated with the People's 

Palace, 244 
Views on the Salvation Army, 

256—260 
Work, on London, 261-264 
Sur'vey of London, 262 
Views on American rapproche- 
ment, 265 
The Atlantic Union, 265-272 
Religious views, 273-285 
Beyond the Dreams of Avarice, 209 
Black, William, 218 
Blackmore, R. D., 218 
Bonser, Sir Winfield, 85 
Booth, Charles, 249 
Brewer, Professor J. S., 68 
British Quarterly Revienv, 169 
Brookficld, Charles, 176 
Browne, Professor J. H., 68 
Buckley, Sir Henry, 84 
Budge, Dr. Wallis, 85 



Burdon-Sanderson, Sir J., 218 

Burton, Sir Richard, 153 

By Celiacs Arbour, 8, 188, 196 

"Caldwell's," 71, 275 

Calverley, C. S., 84-86, 96 

Calvinistic narrowness, 35, 279 

Cambridge University in the fif- 
ties, 81, 277 

Campbell, Dykes, 138 

Capetown in 1867, 147 

Cheetham, Archdeacon, 84 

Cheetham, Bishop, 84 

Children of Gibeon, 209, 246, 247 

Christie, R. Copley, 240 

Cider Cellars, 275 

Coal Hole, 275 

Collins, Wilkie, 218 

Conder, Colonel, 152, 161, 162, 
164, 165, 177 

Contemporary Re'uienv, 255 

Cost of Production, 235 

Creighton, Mrs., 254 

Critics and Criticism, 182, 190 

Currie, Sir Edmund, 244 

Daily Neivs, 169, 177 
Darwin, Francis, 85 
De la Roche du Rouzit, Le Mar- 
quis, 120 
Dicey, Edward, 218 
Dixon, Hepworth, 152 
Donaldson, Professor J. L. , 15a 
Dorothy Forster, 204 
Douglas, Sir John, 136 
Doyen, Professor Leon, 119, 139 
Doyle, Dr. Conan, 206 
Drake, W. T. Tyrwhitt, 153 
Drapers' Company, 245 
Duffield, A. J., 176 
Dn Maurier, George, 96, 240 
Dymes, Miss Annie, 254 

290 



I ND EX 



East London Children's Hos- 
pital, Foundation of, 248 
Ebden, Richard, 84, 109 

Evans's, 275 

Farrar, Dean, 218 

Fergusson, James, 152 

Field, Roscoe & Co., Messrs., 222 

For Faith and Freedom, 206 

Forestier, A., 208 

Foster, Professor Michael, 218 

Fowler, Sir Robert, 218 

Free public libraries, 256 

French prisoners, 1 3 

Freshwater, 72, 73 

Friends of Bohemia, 137 

Froude, J. A., 218 

Ganneau, Clermont, 152, 160, 

163, 164, 165 
Gell, Bishop, 84 
Ginsburg, Dr., 161 
Glaisher, James, 152 
Gloucester, Bishop of, 218 
Gordon, General, 153 
Gosse, Edmund, 176 
Graphic, 205 
Green, Charles, 205 
Grove, Sir George, 55, 152 
Gunson, Dr., 83 
Guthrie, Professor F., 118, 173 

Hales, Professor J. W., 84 
Harben, Sir Henry, 55 
Hardy, Thomas, 240 
Harte, Bret, 240 
Hay, Colonel John, 240 
Heckford, Mrs., 248 
Henslow, George, 85 
Herr Paulus, 209 
History of Jerusalem, 1 74 
Hodges, W. Oliver, 223 



Holborn Casino, 275 
Holland, Rev. F. W., 152 

Hollingshead, John, 218 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 240 
Home Arts Association, 253 
Houghton, Lord, 240 
Hudson, Professor W. H. H., 55 
Hull, Professor, 152 
Huxley, Professor, 218, 256 

Illustrated London Ne^ws, 190 
In Deacon'' s Orders, 211 
Irving, Charles, 55 
Irving, Sir Henry, 55, 240 

James, Henry, 240 
Jardine, Sir J., 84 
Jefferies, Richard, 43 
Jelf, Principal, 274 
"Judge and Jury," 277 

Katherine Regina, 211 
King's College, London, 67, 274 
Kitchener, Lord, 152, 153 
Kitchin, Dean, 218 

Landport, 5 

L" Assommoir, ijj 

Leland, Charles, 176, 177, '240, 

253 
Lely, J. M., 223 
L' Estrange, Guy, 164 
Lewis, Professor Hayter, 152 
Little, J. Stanley, 224 
Liveing, Dr. R., 84 
Lockyer, Sir Norman, 218 
London, Life in, during the 'fifties, 

275 
London, Sur'vey of, 262 
Longman, William, 152 
Longridge, James, 126 
Lytton, Earl, 218, 240 



29] 



INDEX 



Macmillan" Magazine, 169 
Madden, Sn Frederick, 46 
Maine, Sir Henry, 218 
Manning, Cardinal, 218 
Marsh, Sir William, 136 
Martin, Sir Theodore, 218 
Martineau, Dr., 218 
Matthews, Brander, 222 
Mauritius College : 

Dissension at, 117 

Staff at, 118, 130 
Mauritius, Life in, 121-144 
Mauritius, Malarial fever at, 142 
Mauritius, Royal College at, 

I 15-121 
Max-Muller, Professor, 218 
Meldruni, Charles, 137 
Meredith, George, 193 
Merivale, Hermann, 218 
Methods of Publishing, 234 
Middleton-Wake, Rev. C, 84 
* Millais, Sir John, 240 
Moabite stone, 160 
Monksvvell, Lord, 223 
Montefiore, Sir Moses, 153 
Morison, Cotter, 221 
Morrison, Walter, 152 
Moulton, J. Fletcher, 85 
My Little Girl, 196 

Neiv Plutarch, i-j-j 
Nemo York Critic, 194 
Newton, Sir Edward, 136 
Nicholson, " Baron," 276 

Oliphant, Laurence, 153 
Once a IVeek, 168, 180, 186 

Palestine Exploration Fund, 

152, 166, 178 
Palmer, Elegy upon, 156 



Palmer, Professor Edward, 153- 

157, i74> 176, 177. 240 
Parry, Rev. E. St. J., 103 
Payn, James, 177, 240 
Peile, Dr., 84 
People's Palace, 244 
Pickwick, An examination paper 

on, 98 
Pollock, Sir Frederick, 223, 240 
Pollock, The late Sir Frederick, 

221 
Pollock, Walter Herries, 176, 240 
Porchester, 12 
Port Louis in 1861, 114 
Portsea, 4 
Portsmouth, 5 

Portsmouth Grammar School, 49 
Pusey, Professor, 153 

Quarantine Island, 127 

Rabelais Club, 240 

Rae, Fraser, 223 

Rawlinson, Sir Henry, 218 

Rayleigh, Lord, 218 

Reade, Charles, 218 

Ready Money Mortiboy, 186, 188 

Recreation, The science of, 256 

Recreations of the Rabelais Club, 

240 
Reid, Professor J. S., 84 
Reunion Island, 141, 168 
Rice, James, S, 168, 177, 185, 

187, 189, 197 
Rolt, J., 223 

Ross, A. G., 220, 223, 224 
Russell, Sir W. H. 218 
Ryan, Bishop, i 36 

Si. Katherine'' s by the Toiver, 206, 
208 



292 



INDEX 



St. Paul's Grammar School, 

Southsea, 50 
Saintsbury, Professor, 176, 240 
Sala, George Augustus, 218, 240 
Saturday Re-vieiv, 93, 173, 211, 

279 
Savile Club, 175 
Scoones, W. B., 215 
Seeley, Sir John, 84, 218 
Sendall, Sir Walter, 84, 97 
Seychelles Islands, 113 
Shaftesbury, Lord, 153 
Shand, Chief Justice, 136 
Shapira, 161 

Sheepshanks, Bishop, 84 
Shipley, A. E., 85 
Simpson, William, 162 
Skeat, Professor Walter, 84 
Smith, Horace W. , 55 
Smith, Professor Robertson, 85 
Smith, Sir William, 84 
Smith, W. F., 240 
Southsea, 5 
Spectator, 191, 259 
Sprigge, Dr. S. Squire, 224 
Stephen, Sir Herbert, 240 
Stevenson, Robert Louis, 176,240 
Stevenson, Sir William, 136 
Stewart, Aubrey, 164 
Stockwell Grammar School, 55 
Studies in Early French Poetry, 

Sur'vey of London, 262 
Sutherland, Duke of, 158 
Sweatman, Bishop, 84 

Temple Bar, 169 
Tennyson, Lord, 217 
The Alabaster Box, 209 
The Case of Mr. Lucraft, 196 
The Chaplain of the Fleet, 196 
The City of Refuge, 209 



The Fourth Generation, 209 
The French Humorists, 169 
The Golden Butterfly, 188, 196, 

213 
The Holy Rose, 14 
The Inner House, 211 
The Lady of Lynn, 206 
The Master Craftsman, 209 
The Monks of Thelema, 196 
The Orange Girl, 206 
The Rebel ^een, 209 
The Re'volt of Man, 211 
The Seamy Side, 196 
The IVorld Went Very Well Then, 

206, 208 
This Son of Vulcan, 196 
Thomas Moy, 218 
Thompson, Sir Henry, 218 
Thring, G. H., 224 
Titania" s Fareavell, 180 
Traill, H. D., 240 
Trench, Archbishop, 74 
Tristram, Canon, 152 
Tucker, Miss Janet, 177 
Tyndall, Professor, 218 

Underdown, E. M., 222, 223 

Valentine, Tristram, 219 
Vaughan, Dean, 218 
Vaux, W. S. W., 152 
Vice Versa, 177 
Vines, Professor S. H., 85 
Voysey, Rev. Charles, 55 

Wace, Principal, 69 
Walton, Rev. S., 104 
Ward, Professor Marshall, 85 
Warren, Sir Charles, 152, 153, 

160, 218 
Watt, A. P., 203 



293 



INDEX 



Watts, H. E., 176 
White, Rev. Henry, 218 
Whitty, Edward M., 137 
Widley Church, 41 
Wigan Gordon, 176 
Wilson, Sir Charles, 153, 164, 218 
fFith Harp and Cronun, 196 
Wollaston, A. N., 55 



Wolseley, Viscount, 218 
Wolstenholme, Professor J., 83 
Women's Bureau of Work, 254 
Women's ideals, 256 
Woolner, T., 240 
Wren, Walter, 84 

YoNGE, Charlotte, 218 



18 8 9 4f^ 



294 

















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